Successful Ballinrobe author Mick Donnellan is bringing his story of a tiger kidnapping gone wrong to stage in Galway for one of the city’s premier arts festivals.
The play, Radio Luxembourgh, is currently being made into a movie with a stellar cast that includes Love/Hate and The Inbetweeners actor, Robbie Sheehan, and Brian Gleeson, son of Ireland’s king of film noir, Brendan Gleeson.
The movie is due for release in early 2015 but fans of black comedy can get a preview of the action when the play runs for five nights from July 12 to 17 at St Columban Hall, on the Sea Road, Galway, as part of the Galway Fringe Festival.
The play was staged for the first time, as a shorter version, at the Claremorris Fringe Festival last year.
Mr Donnellan, who is also a published novelist, then decided to further develop and extend the play and sent it to a production company in London.
“They loved it and bought it straight away,” he said. “Initially, it was going to be made as an arthouse film with a budget of around €10,000 but they have since increased the budget and secured international funding.”
Mr Donnellan and the entire film crew are set to decamp to Morocco in August for a 20-day shoot in the desert.
The title for the screen version of Radio Luxemobourgh will be Tiger Raid.
It is a black comedy that centres on two Irish criminals who hatch a tiger kidnapping plan but it all goes horribly wrong.
Mr Donnellan’s theatre company, Truman Town, first came to prominence on the theatrical circuit in 2012 with Sunday Morning Coming Down.
Following a successful national tour, they went on to produce two more hit plays - Shortcut to Hallelujah and Gun Metal Grey. The three plays have now come to be known as the ‘Ballinrobe Trilogy’.
This latest chapter in his career, bringing his work to the big screen, is a “whole new adventure”, said Mr Donnellan.
“It is really moving into a different kind of professional sphere. It is definitely very exciting and hopefully it will be something to build on for the future.”
Radio Luxembourgh is opening on Saturday evening, July 12, in St. Columban Hall, Sea Road, Galway (close to The Crane Bar ), at 8 pm. Tickets cost €12/€10. The play continues until Thursday, July 17.
