Essential for fans of Derry Girls.
Aside from the public adulation, critical acclaim and impressive awards – and there’s loads of those – one of the main reasons why Derry Girls resonated around the world was the universality of its story.
Of course, the show is as Irish as eating a cream horn on Pump Street but its appeal stretches beyond Foyleside.
From an Irish perspective, we all got a kick out of seeing references to the punt purses, Kamal from Ballybofey and the surreal – yet incredibly accurate – take on what it’s like to attend an Irish school, but ultimately, the strength of Lisa McGee’s writing is found in the relationship between the characters.
Derry Girls is uniquely Irish because it’s proof of Sean O’Casey’s famous line, “That’s the Irish all over – they treat a joke as a serious thing and a serious thing as a joke”, but the show is elevated by the fact that every single person in the world can relate to these characters.
With Season 2 of the hit show set to start filming in October, fans of Lisa McGee’s writing will be delighted to know that her award-winning play Girls and Dolls will be playing all over Ireland very soon and it does bear similarities to the hit show while branching out into new territories.
OK, what’s it about?
Jamie-Lee O’Donnell (Derry Girls) and Jennifer Barry (The Young Offenders) play two friends from Derry during the 1980s.
Emma and Clare are thick as thieves – skipping, chasing, playing in the park. But the terrible events of that summer would tear their lives apart, binding them together forever. As adults, they obsessively replay past events and incidents. Could anything have been done to change them?
For Emma and Clare, it was the summer they met at the swings, the summer they built a tree house and the summer a young mother and her infant daughter moved into number fourteen. Now in their 30s, Emma and Clare struggle to come to terms with the chain of devastating events that began that summer.
Ahead of the play opening, we got a chance to chat with the two talented actresses and while Girls and Dolls does have some similarities to Derry Girls, it’s very much its own entity.
“It’s a black comedy and it’s very funny. It nails that Irish humour that Lisa is so good at. You know, finding the humour in the situations that aren’t overtly funny and somehow seeing the silver lining. It’s all about how people use humour as a coping mechanism to get through situations,” said O’Donnell.
As fans of Derry Girls will know, McGee is extremely capable of juxtaposing laughs with pathos – that final scene which featured the bombing was heartbreaking – and she’s continuing this approach with a play that previously won both a Stewart Parker Award and the Blackburn Prize.
This ability to switch between laughter and drama was a big reason why Jennifer Barry was attracted to the role.
“It’s set during The Troubles but it’s not actually about them. You’re seeing it through the eyes of two 10-year-old girls and they don’t see it as The Troubles, they just see it as their normal life. Her writing is very unique. The comedy side of it reminds me of Martin McDonagh’s work because the jokes were very subtle and not instantly jumping out at you, but they’re very funny and it’s up to the audience to really take them in,” said Barry.
After working so closely with McGee on Derry Girls, O’Donnell was itching to jump at the chance to team up with her again and tell another story that’s able to make you laugh while examining a very difficult period in Irish history.
“It’s the sign of a great writer – someone that can keep you laughing and wanting more jokes and can then sort of throw in something that’s a bit more heartbreaking but then not dwell on that sad moment. Life goes on, you continue on and you laugh again. Lisa is brilliant at that. She just has this ability to keep things in perspective because what’s important are these girls and their friendships but she never loses sight of what’s going on around them.”
Jennifer Barry (The Young Offenders) stars alongside Jamie Lee O’Donnell (Derry Girls) in Girls and Dolls by Lisa McGee which plays for a limited run from 11th-15th September at The Gaiety Theatre, Dublin.
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