David Ireland: West End dream comes true for east Belfast playwright

Cheers star Woody Harrelson and Lord of the Rings actor Andy Serkis have been cast in David Ireland's play

For Belfast-born writer David Ireland, his life is about to imitate his art.

A-listers Woody Harrelson, Andy Serkis and Louisa Harland are to star in the forthcoming London production of his play Ulster American.

"It's ironic because the play is about a Northern Irish playwright and an English director putting on a play in the West End about Northern Ireland with a big American star in it," Ireland told BBC News NI.

"That's the situation we find ourselves in so, yeah, it's interesting."

Ireland is a successful and acclaimed writer with award-winning plays, like Cyprus Avenue, and the recent Sky TV series The Lovers among his best known work.

But working with stars in the West End marks quite a journey from his east Belfast roots.

He grew up in the Ballybeen housing estate in Dundonald in the 1980s and 1990s, and attended Brooklands Primary School.

"I was born in Sandy Row so we moved to Ballybeen when I was about seven," he said.

David Ireland pictured in character for the comedy show Miller's Mountain in 2014

"I really liked living in Sandy Row, but when we moved to Ballybeen there was so much green around and trees everywhere, I thought we'd moved to the countryside.

"I felt like it was some kind of rural idyll I'd escaped to.

"I've got a very sentimental attachment to Ballybeen and Belfast in general."

'Obsessed with Shakespeare'

After Brooklands Primary School, having passed the 11 plus test, he went to the Royal Belfast Academical Institution (RBAI).

That is where his interest in drama really took off, nurtured by English teachers like the poet Frank Ormsby.

"From then, I sort of became obsessed with Shakespeare," he remembered.

"I wanted to be a great Shakespearian actor - that was my ambition but it wasn't to be."

He left Northern Ireland in the late 1990s to go to drama school in Glasgow, originally with the ambition to be an actor.

Since then, he has lived mainly in Glasgow, though did return to Belfast for about five years in his 30s before heading back to the Scottish city.

During his time in Belfast, local theatre companies, like Tinderbox, began to perform his work.

Coming home

Despite living in Glasgow again, the location of many of his plays return to Belfast.

"I feel very conflicted about it," he said.

"I used to hate it when I was growing up in Belfast and people who didn't live there commented on it.

"I used to think: 'What's he know? He doesn't even live here' and I'd hate to be one of those people.

"There's something in me that can't stop writing about Northern Ireland. I suppose trying to make sense of growing up there and making sense of my background and my upbringing.

"Especially with The Lovers - there was a kind of sentimental yearning for Belfast because I really miss the place.

"As soon as I'm back in Belfast I feel like I can breathe again.

"I feel like I walk around in Glasgow and London and other places feeling uptight and then once I get to Belfast I just relax a wee bit."

His hit plays like Cyprus Avenue and Ulster American combine absurdity, comedy and violence in equal measure.

Is that how he sees Northern Ireland?

"I think it's probably how I see life," he replied.

"Growing up there and growing up with the Troubles in the background and sectarianism in the background it did feel like a such a heightened, absurd place."

Derry Girls star Louisa Harland has been cast in Ulster American

So when did David Ireland find out about the stellar Ulster American cast?

"It had been in the pipeline for a while that there were talks going on, but obviously with actors of that status there's a lot of questions about availability and about dates and so on and when everybody would be available," he said.

"I'd heard that was our three actors and I didn't really believe it.

"I thought there's some obstacle will come in the way to stop that dream happening but thankfully it's all happened."

'Explaining Ulster loyalism to Americans'

Although the play is set to be one of the West End's hottest tickets this winter, Ireland is hoping that some people from Northern Ireland will get to see it.

He cites playwrights from a similar working-class background to his, like Graham Reid and Gary Mitchell, as among his inspirations.

"I remember going to see those plays at the Lyric [Theatre in Belfast] and thinking 'That person understands, they've come from where I've come from, they understand what my life is like what my background is like', so that kind of stuff is important," he told BBC News NI.

The play that charts David Ervine's journey from youth to UVF to Stormont

"That is one of the central themes of Ulster American - how do you write about where you come from without upsetting people from there, offending people from there, being truthful about the place?

"Maybe telling some hard truths? How do you do that without feeling that you're selling out your culture as well?

"One of the starting points of the play when I was writing it was how do you explain Ulster loyalism to an American audience - to an American full stop - and even to an English audience?

"Even sometimes Scottish people struggle with it and, in fact, even Northern Irish people struggle to understand our country."

The London production of Ulster American at Riverside Studios will run for eight weeks from 4 December 2023.