It's back to the BBC's virtual theatre festival for what must be one of the most-anticipated entries: David Ireland is the most recent playwright to contribute to the Royal Court's dubious history of plays where babies meet a violent end, so he comes with a certain amount of notoriety. So far we've had plays that had already been seen by live audiences in one form or another;
Sadie is one rescued from obscurity by the
Lights Up season, as it had been commissioned by
Cyprus Avenue's star Stephen Rea for his own company, only to be cancelled by lockdown. The BBC and Lyric Theatre Belfast (where Conleth Hill's production was filmed) stepped in to ensure the show (presumably slightly rewritten as it includes a few references to Covid-19 and lockdown) could be seen after all. A kind of memory play, it begins with middle-aged office cleaner Sadie (Abigail McGibbon) conjuring up her long-dead uncle Red (Patrick Jenkins,) a Catholic communist who'd married into her Protestant Northern Irish family but largely stayed out of their political conflicts.
