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Irish Times
05-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
The Pillowman, at the Gate Theatre: ‘Another level of dark, even for Martin McDonagh'
Martin McDonagh 's The Pillowman, a chilling fable of two brothers embroiled in a criminal investigation, has more relevance today than ever, according to Fra Fee . The actor plays Katurian, the accused writer at the heart of this darkly comic tale of censorship and artistic licence, which is about to open at the Gate Theatre in Dublin. The play was first performed in 2003, at the National Theatre in London, where David Tennant took on the role of Katurian, who is being interrogated in a totalitarian state about a series of child murders that bear an eerie resemblance to the killings in his stories. 'Of course censorship has always been a thing, but I find it extraordinary that this predates cancel culture, as it were, which is just so, so prevalent, and people are afraid to say anything, and art is very much edited on a big level,' Fee says. READ MORE 'The timing of putting it on is pretty cool, because I think it's Martin's way of going, 'Stories are important, and we learn through stories, and we have to be able to tell stories in the way that they're originally designed'.' The play is 'another level of dark, even for Martin McDonagh'. 'He really leans into it in a delicious way. I just thought I absolutely have to do this,' says Fee, whose character's brother, Michal, is being played by his fellow northerner Ryan Dylan , in a production directed by the Olivier winner Lyndsey Turner. For Fee, whose last project was the Bafta-nominated BBC series Lost Boys and Fairies, The Pillowman is 'a homecoming of sorts', as a decade ago the actor played Romeo in the Gate's production of Romeo and Juliet . Martin McDonagh, whose play The Pillowman is being staged in Dublin. Photograph: Todd Heisler/The New York Times But for his costar, who was one of the writers and stars of the comedy Funboys – also on the BBC – earlier this year, it's his stage debut. 'Most of the time I'm freaking out,' Dylan says in a room backstage at the Gate , before their first full run-through of the play. 'The first three weeks I was freaking out – just, like, 'I can't believe I'm here, can't believe I'm doing this,' so I was taking it very seriously, locking in. I was, like, 'Don't laugh. Don't laugh.' In the last week or two I'm really starting to enjoy everyone's company and ... it settles in.' 'I had no idea,' Fee says, laughing. Dylan calls The Pillowman a miserably good play. 'I remember reading the script and going, 'Aw, God, that's just really upsetting.' I do a lot of sketches up north, and I do play a lot of crazy characters, eccentrics and Michal-adjacent characters,' he says. 'Lyndsey is so good. She's just so conscientious and supportive and intelligent. She really has made me feel at ease.' 'Just on a purely practical level,' Fee, who was born in Co Tyrone, adds, 'it really helps that we've got a really similar accent. I was thrilled when Lyndsey said that Ryan was from Armagh.' Julian Moore-Cook, who plays Ariel, one of the detectives, is also from the North. 'It's certainly helpful for the audience,' Fee says – 'just an immediate sense that these boys are from the same place, at the very least. We need them to believe for an evening that we're brothers ... It really works rhythmically, because we're all using our own accents.' (The day we meet, it could be hard to see Fee and Dylan as brothers, but the next day Dylan has his hair dyed a few shades darker, bringing his look closer to Fee's. It makes a surprising difference.) That the actors sound so similar could help prompt audiences to read the play through an Irish lens. But the world of the drama is in no sense Ireland, according to Fee. 'This is an imagined totalitarian state that happens to have Irish accents,' he says. 'I don't think it's, like, 'This is Ireland if it was controlled in some sort of fascist regime.' It's definitely a made-up world.' One of their first tasks during the table readings for the play, Fee says, was stripping back the brothers' relationship, which was shaped by childhood trauma. The events the play depicts amount to 'an exceptional circumstance – it's an extraordinary day – so you need to then think about what's an ordinary day, to get a feel of who they are as brothers and what their sort of camaraderie is. 'We basically came to the conclusion that they essentially just have each other. It's not a really broad social network of people. It's pretty much them – the stakes are really high because they are each other's world.' [ Low lie the Fields of Peckham Rye: Martin McDonagh and the London Irish Opens in new window ] The Pillowman deals with weighty themes – after Michal implicates Katurian in the murders, for example, his brother resigns himself to being executed. How do the actors manage to leave the emotions their characters' predicament generates behind at the theatre when they go home each night? 'I find that the darker the material you're doing, the more fun you're having outside of it. Even if it's unconsciously just, 'I'm going to go have a laugh, because you can't take that mood home',' says Fee, who adds that the show is also extremely funny. 'I've been holding in laughs. It's really serious, but it's almost so dark it's absurd, so that makes you laugh. I think we're getting to expel that energy as well.' 'That's one thing, actually, that I'm anticipating, is laughter from an audience,' says Dylan, who has been keeping his media consumption light outside of the rehearsal room. 'I've stopped watching really dark stuff, probably because I'm doing it throughout the day and don't want to overload. A general practice of mine, if I'm trying to write something or do anything long term like this, is I just try to keep life outside of the acting boring, boring, boring. 'I want to give a shout out to Deadliest Catch, because that's been getting me through – just a boring, dumb show,' he says of the long-running series about life aboard Alaskan crab-fishing boats. At one point in our conversation Fee remarks that The Pillowman is like McDonagh's love letter to stories, and to 'having the freedom to tell the stories'. A key theme of the play is the related issue of artistic legacy. It's a question Katurian especially grapples with. Fee quotes one of his lines: 'It isn't about being or not being dead, it's about what you leave behind.' 'We all will leave this earth,' Fee says, 'and I guess all of us probably like the idea of leaving just a little imprint. Martin's way is just leaving this wealth of stuff that he's created. There's something really beautiful about that, and admirable. It doesn't make you a narcissistic egomaniac to want to leave something behind.' The Pillowman's lines could be a challenge to learn, Fee says – and he didn't help himself just before rehearsals started by 'stupidly' reading an interview with the singer Lily Allen, who played Katurian – the first woman to portray the character – in the West End of London in 2023. [ Lily Allen on working with Martin McDonagh: I would say things that might shock people, and he would be smiling Opens in new window ] It was 'just for the craic – like, 'I wonder how Lily Allen got on with this role.' And she's, like, 'I started learning my lines five months ago, because there's so many stories to learn.' 'And I was, like, 'Oh, my God. I've left it too late.' I kept thinking, 'It's five weeks away: that's not enough time.' But it's okay – touch wood.' The Pillowman is in preview at the Gate Theatre , Dublin. It opens on Wednesday, July 9th, and runs until Sunday, September 7th
BBC News
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
BBC Comedy orders more fun from the Funboys
Funboys is a show where frigids get their first kiss. Pigs fly in the sky. Three chubby little lads frolick fields, navigate life's dramas, and learn how funboys become funmen. Ready to put it all on the line and die a horrific jumping death for the sake of friendship, these are a group of boys who understand the healing power of touch; touching hearts, themselves, the nation. And if you think for one second they're afraid to talk to each other about their feelings just because they're guys, prepare to have your f*cking lid blown off. The series, filmed in rural Northern Ireland, started as a BBC Comedy Short Film before securing a full series commission which launched to critical acclaim in February this year. Ryan Dylan says: 'Series Two is here. We've learned nothing, grown less and legally can't be left alone. Funboys forever.' Rian Lennon says: 'Our show is like what if the teletubbies took off the dang suits and got real for a second. We don't pull punches, we've written a show that's hard as rocks. And if you don't like it you can jog the frigging hell on.' Simon Mayhew-Archer, Executive Producer and CEO Mayhay Studios says: 'We go again.' Eddie Doyle, Head of Commissioning for BBC Northern Ireland, says: 'It's a real treat to be able to serve audiences another portion of Funboys with Ryan, Rian and Lee. This backs our commitment to giving a platform to new comedy voices and local talent, and we can't wait to see what the boys from Ballymacnoose have up their sleeves for series two.' The first series had critical acclaim with The Guardian describing it as 'some of the most fearless comedy in years' and the London Evening Standard calling it 'beautifully bonkers'. Funboys (4 x 30) is a Mayhay Studios production for BBC Three and iPlayer. It has been commissioned by BBC Director of Comedy, Jon Petrie and BBC Head of Commissioning for Northern Ireland, Eddie Doyle. The show is written by Rian Lennon and Ryan Dylan, and directed by Lennon. They also serve as executive producers alongside Simon Mayhew-Archer. The commissioning editors for the BBC are Navi Lamba and Seb Barwell, and Jason Butler for BBC Northern Ireland. HM2
BBC News
07-02-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Funboys cast and creators tease some "good wholesome mucking about" in the new BBC comedy
Funboys is a brand new comedy series for BBC Northern Ireland, BBC Three and BBC iPlayer. From the BAFTA-award winning producer of This Country (Simon Mayhew-Archer) and produced by Mayhay Studios, Funboys is a 4x30 comedy series about three emotionally-unassembled young men in small-town Northern Ireland. The series will air on BBC iPlayer and BBC NI on Monday 10 February, BBC Three on Thursday 13 February and BBC One on Friday 28February. Funboys sees friends Callum (Ryan Dylan), Jordan (Rian Lennon) and Lorcan (Lee R James) attempt to navigate through the hardships of life. From first girlfriends to dead pet pigs, the lads are put through the psychological ringer. But will their shared love of innocent fun and wholesome mucking about land them in hot water? Funboys, set in Northern Ireland and filmed with support from Northern Ireland Screen is an irreverent series exploring the emotional chaos of young men navigating their own messy lives. The ensemble cast includes Ele McKenzie, Jamie Demetriou, Brian Devlin, Owen Colgan, Paul Bazely, Richard Croxford, Emer O'Connor, Amanda Hurwitz, James Martin, Vanessa Ifediora, Walter Chigui and Brendan Quinn. Meet the cast of Funboys... MM2 Interview with Ryan Dylan (Callum) What makes a Funboy? Someone who loves good wholesome mucking about. Someone who loves their friends and isn't afraid to show it. Someone with traits of depression, anxiety, and narcissism - all rolled into one overthinking, over-feeling, overflowing burrito of existential crises. What inspired the show? Mundanity meeting melodrama. The idea of three young men navigating life with unfiltered emotionality, while being completely clueless about what any of it means. Deep feelings colliding with shallow understanding. Also, low self-worth. Desperation. How would you describe the series? Handjobs, Class A drugs, and pigs. An embarrassingly honest look into the growing pains of three stunted, ill-equipped twenty-somethings. Tell us about your character? Callum is the human embodiment of Eeyore the donkey. Confused, sad, afraid; but not without friends. Two, to be exact. Gullible and left adrift, Callum is like an orphaned fawn frozen in the headlights of the joyriding lorry that is adulthood. Interview with Rian Lennon (Jordan) What makes a Funboy? Someone willing to put it all on the line for fun. Someone willing to die a horrific death for the sake of friendship. Someone willing to give his best pal a big lovely kiss on the cheek to cheer him up, even when all the other guys will say there's something sexual in it when really it's just a platonic thing and they're just really close mates who understand the healing power of touch. What inspired the show? Myself, Ryan and Lee all experienced something known as dream meshing. It's when you share the same dream with someone at the exact same time, sort of like online gaming. We were fully lucid and could consciously bring our personal memories to the surface. We all scanned through each other's minds, like a Matrix combat simulation, and when our dream stomachs were full we began constructing the town of Ballymacnoose and the storylines surrounding it. We spent seven nights like this, sleeping over in each other's houses in sleeping bags. We would spend the days physically recuperating with nourishment and warm hearted laughter, readying ourselves for the night's construction ahead. At bedtime we would kiss each other on the cheek, take a sip of warm milk, tuck ourselves in, and enter the dream. Our day was only just beginning. How would you describe the series? It's like strawberry flavoured chewing gum. It's sweet, gives you something to chew on, and if you swallow it it'll stay with you forever. Tell us about your character? Jordan has taken the scenic route through mental development. He's a brat. A nightmare. But a good boy all the same. His love languages are quality time and gift giving. He might scream and cry because you aren't hanging out with him, he might even threaten to throw himself into the path of an oncoming bus because you haven't replied to his texts. But it's because he cares so, so deeply about his friends. That's what being a Funboy is all about, and if there's a better way to live then I don't want to know about it. Interview with Lee R James (Lorcan) What makes a Funboy? Being a Funboy is in the eye of the beholder, anyone can be a Funboy with the right mindset. Whether that frame of mind is burning passion for your friends or being hellbent on a good time regardless of the consequences. What inspired the show? The show was inspired by the lack of representation of the rural folk who wander these lands. The small towns we grew up in are filled with oddities that deserve the spotlight. How would you describe the series? It's like that certain Scottish soft drink, a strange and unique flavour. Every episode is like a cold can, by the time you've got to the fourth one you'll be craving more. Funboys is a show that'll make you laugh and could maybe even make you cry. Tell us about your character? Lorcan is the glue that holds the boys together, he's essentially like a mother. Callum and Jordan are like his two favourite sons, there's not much wrong those boys could do in Lorcan's eyes. His humility lets him see the world through rose tinted glasses but that sometimes gets the better of him and he struggles to navigate through some of life's more mundane problems.
