“A Grotesquely, brilliant play….utterly compelling”
Fintan O’Toole, Irish Times

A compelling look at a life behind the headlines of the Troubles, from some of Ireland’s finest: Conall Morrison, Sean Kearns and Storytellers Theatre Company.

Hard To Believe charts with dramatic intensity and humour the story of John Foster, a former counter- intelligence officer who operated dirty tricks for the British army in Northern Ireland. A professional cynic and arch political manipulator, he returns to Belfast when the last member of his family dies, where he finds himself in the family attic, free-falling through memories of a complex and contradictory life.

Dynamically directed by its award-winning author Conall Morrison, this exhilarating, provocative play is a blackly funny investigation into the nature of belief: how they sold us God, spinach, and the electric chair. It poses the question: at the dark centre of a world of spin and stakeknife, is there anything left we can truly have faith in?

Sean Kearns, in “a tour de force performance”, (Sunday Times), plays over twenty mammies, agents, dogs, murderers, priests, touts and politicians. In its quest to dig out some light and laughter from the midst of the murk Hard to Believe is “quite simply gobsmacking” (Sunday Tribune). Originally staged by Bickerstaffe Theatre in 1995, this is a timely revival of a powerful play, featuring Sean Kearns in the role he originally created.

BIOGRAPHIES

Conall Morrison                                                                 In 2003, for Storytellers he wrote and directed a controversial and highly acclaimed production of Sophocles’ Antigone. He previously directed for the company an adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma for which he received The Sunday Tribune’s best Director Award. An Associate Director of The Abbey Theatre, Conall has directed numerous productions there including his own adaptation of Patrick Kavanagh’s Tarry Flynn (also at the Lyttleton Theatre, Royal National Theatre), Boucicault’s The Colleen Bawn (also at the Lyttleton Theatre), Brian Friel’s Freedom of The City, The Tempest, Tom Murphy’s The House and A Whistle in The Dark and Marina Carr’s Ariel (for the Dublin Theatre Festival, 2002). For the Peacock Theatre, he directed In a Little World of Our Own and As the Beast Sleeps by Gary Mitchell, Twenty Grand by Declan Hughes and Savoy by Eugene O’Brien. Other productions include Conquest of the South Pole, The Marlboro Man, Kvetch and for the Lyric Theatre (Belfast) Dancing at Lughnasa, Juno and the Paycock ,Tom Murphy’s Conversations on a Homecoming which also featured in the Dublin Theatre Festival (2002) and most recently his own adaptation Ibsen’s Ghosts. Conall also directed Martin Guerre for Cameron Mackintosh at the West Yorkshire Playhouse and the Guthrie Centre, Minneapolis. His own plays include Rough Justice, Green, Orange and Pink and Hard To Believe. He has won an Irish Times/ESB Best Director Award and a Sunday Independent/Spirit of Life Award.

Sean Kearns
Sean Kearns is one of Ireland’s most distinguished actors and is know to Edinburgh Festival audiences from his appearance in Loco County Lonesome, (Blackbox) winner of a Herald Angel Award in 2000. He has taken leading roles with Ireland’s principal companies including Falstaff in Henry IV Part 1 (Peacock Theatre) and Mr. Collins in Pride and Prejudice, (Gate Theatre), which toured to the Spoleto Festival in Charleston. Other roles include the Nurse and Friar Lawrence in Romeo and Juliet (Kabosh), for which he was nominated for and Irish Times/ESB award; Oscar Wilde in A Trinity of Two (Tristan Bates Theatre London); The Whisperers (Rough Magic); Dizzy Duffy in Toupees and Snare Drums (Coisceim Dance Theatre); In a Little World of Our Own (Abbey Theatre); and Hard to Believe (Bickerstaffe). Recent roles at the Lyric Theatre include Jack in The Importance of Being Earnest, Eddie Watson in Marie Jones’ Weddins Weeins and Wakes, Lennie in Of Mice and Men, Captain Von Trapp in The Sound of Music, Daddy Warbucks in Annie, Rev. Hale in The Crucible and Fagin in Oliver. Film and TV work includes As the Beast Sleeps, Puckoon, Angela’s Ashes, The Cup, Best, Durango, The Informant, The Governor, Ballykissangel and Children of the North. This is Sean’s first performance with Storytellers Theatre Company.

“This is theatre that goes to the core”.
Sunday Independent

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