The Border Game by Michael Patrick & Oisín Kearney

A co-production between Prime Cut and The Lyric Theatre, The Border Game is Michael and Oisín’s response to the 100 year anniversary of the Irish Border.

 

Production Shots by Ciaran Bagnall

The Border Game first played at the Lyric Theatre as part of The Belfast International Arts Festival 2021 and then toured Ireland in 2022.

On a farm on the border, a fence needs repaired after being destroyed by vandals. When Sinead finds Henry hungover in her field, she ropes him in to help. But re-building a fence is more complicated than it seems. What begins as a simple task soon turns to talk of their past, a reliving of old memories, and a relentless competition to come out on top.

From the award-winning writers Michael Patrick & Oisín Kearney (My Left Nut and The Alternative), and Irish Times Theatre Award-winning director Emma Jordan (Red and A Streetcar Named Desire); The Border Game is a timely and powerful reflection on 100 years of the border and how it has impacted those who live along it. Inspired by 100 testimonies collected by the writers with real people living all over the 300-miles of the border.

As part of Prime Cut’s development Programme REVEAL, they commissioned one new play with the hope of staging it between 2021 - 2022. Michael and Oisín applied with an idea of responding to the upcoming 100th anniversary of the border, and were selected.

“REVEAL IS A UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY FOR THEATRE ARTISTS AT THE EARLY STAGE OF THEIR CAREER TO WORK ALONGSIDE PRIME CUT AND THEIR ASSOCIATE ARTISTS IN DEVELOPING THEIR PRACTICE AND NETWORKS, FAST-TRACKING THEIR CAREER IN THE CHALLENGING ARENA OF ART-MAKING IN NORTHERN IRELAND.”
— PRIME CUT

Michael and Oisín spent the summer of 2020 touring the border, speaking to 100 different people from all ages, backgrounds and experiences. They used these interviews to form the basis of their script.

Reviews

  • ★★★★ The Guardian
    crackling new play… the co-writers bring wit as well as acuity to complicated questions of identity.

  • ★★★★ The Stage
    investigates the stark realities of modern-day life along the politically contentious Irish border.

  • Susan McKay for the Guardian
    A powerful new play… a sharp political satire about the legacy of partition… moving, honourable

  • The Irish Independent
    carried beautifully by the two actors… This touching play puts the issues through a moving interpersonal filter… a theatrical thinking-tool worth a mountain of opinion pieces.

  • No More Workhorse
    a humorous, insightful and timely meditation on a place that has changed beyond recognition in the last 100 years

  • Irish Times
    beneath the laddish humour… beats a dark, angry heart, emanating from a century-old line on a map

  • Belfast Media Group
    a must-see production… a huge success

  • Alan in Belfast (Original Run)
    Patrick and Kearney get to the heart of why the border is a political act, and why it’s a high stakes game to tamper with the fragile status quo that has allowed rootless moss to cover over the cracks.

  • Alan in Belfast (Tour)
    The Border Game is probably my favourite play to tackle the absurdities and complexity of the 310 mile line that splits north from south on this island. (Yes, I’d put it ahead of Friel’s Translations.)

  • British Theatre Guide (Original Run)
    Adroitly juggling comedy, drama and aching pathos… timely and topical. It is also the work of two young writers coming into their maturity

  • British Theatre Guide (Tour)
    Told with typically sardonic Northern Irish humour, The Border Game is a vital commentary on a century of unnecessary division and hurt… a sharp, sensitive piece of writing

  • Emer Dooris
    literally breath-taking… like fireworks going off in my heart… and fabulous laugh out loud moments

Interviews and Articles

  • Emma Jordan on timely new Belfast Festival drama The Border Game - Irish News

  • Interview with Michael and Oisín - RTÉ Arena

  • My Left Nut writers explore Irish border - British Theatre Guide

  • Liz FitzGibbon on bringing the Irish border to the Belfast stage - Sunday Times

  • Exciting new work explores 100 years living on the border - Lyric Theatre