A brand new theatre work will be presented at the National Celtic Folk Festival (NCFF) this weekend.
The premiere readings of playwright Fleur Murphy’s Never Always Ever Was will be held at Portarlington’s St Andrew’s Church as part of the festival, with the audience invited to be involved in the creative process through post-show Q&A sessions.
The work stars Geelong actor Amanda LaBonté and Tom Royce-Hampton, both of whom performed in the Australian production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
Supported by the British Council and produced in collaboration with the critically acclaimed Northern Irish company c21 Theatre, Never Always Ever Was centres around the lives of young Belfast man Danny and university graduate Julia, who meet at a Port Fairy pub on New Year’s Eve in 1989.
The work tells a sweeping, multigenerational story that spans the globe, exploring ideas of identity, home and the far-reaching effects of the choices we make.
Murphy said she was thrilled to see the work showing at NCFF this weekend.
“(There is) a real appeal to being able to test this work at the festival, because it’s not until you get something like this in front of an audience and in a space and you can start to see it alive breathing, that you can see how those things function,” she said.
“This opportunity to be able to share some excerpts and engage with an audience and kind of gain their feedback is really really helpful at this kind of early stage of the development of a piece.”
Never Always Ever Was is at NCFF at 1.30pm on Saturday, June 7 and 4.30pm on Sunday, June 8.
