'The audience will know all the references': Nancy Harris on her West Cork-set play

Irish Examiner

02-07-2025

BAFTA-nominated playwright and screenwriter Nancy Harris, whose play The Beacon is coming to the Everyman, says that she loves a good mystery story.
Fascinated by the West Cork podcast which explored the story of the murdered French woman, Sophie Toscan du Plantier, near Schull, London-based Harris, who spent a lot of time in Baltimore growing up, says she has always been taken by stories of local people living under a cloud of suspicion.
'Ian Bailey [suspected of the killing of the French film-maker] was just one person who was very prominent. There are other stories of local legends who may have murdered their wives,' says Harris.
Harris, who was born in Dublin to Cork-born journalists, Anne and Eoghan Harris, admits to being nervous about the Cork premiere of her play.
'The audience will know all the places and references. I feel kind of like a traitor in the midst of Cork for having been born in Dublin. We spent huge amounts of time in Cork.
"Last week, after a meeting, I went for a walk through Cork city and out to Bishopstown where my grandparents lived. I found myself outside their house (which had been sold on) where I hadn't been since my grandmother's wake. I felt really emotional.'
Describing herself as 'a little bit rebellious,' Harris didn't want to follow in her parents' footsteps.
'So I went to college to study drama and classical civilisation and do anything other than write. But I really couldn't do anything else other than write. I found my way back to it at the end of my university degree. I wrote a play but I didn't know how I did it. So I spent a few years figuring out whether I could do it again.
"I realised the thing I loved the most was playwrighting and that all my life, I had been coming to it. I had an amazing classics teacher at school and thought I wanted to be like her. Drama and the classics, with Greek tragedy included, feed into each other.'
Geraldine Hughes stars as Beiv in The Beacon, at the Everyman. Picture: Miki Barlok
Harris, who started her career at Soho Theatre writing 20-minute plays with a group of five other writers, is currently working on the third series of The Dry. This funny Irish TV comedy-drama is written solely by Harris. It deals with alcoholism in a dysfunctional family.
'It's a big serious subject. I'm someone who loves comedy. The comedy in The Dry is really essential because I wouldn't want to sit down and be depressed watching it. Myself and Paddy Breathnach, who's a brilliant director, work hard to make sure there's light and shade all the time.'
While her dark play, originally commissioned by Druid in 2019, has a mysterious death at the heart of it, it's also a family drama with deep dysfunction. There's humour there too.
The central character, Beiv, is a celebrated feminist artist whom Harris likens to British artist Tracey Emin, given the 'sexually explicit' nature of her work.
'Beiv has always lived a very transgressive life. Her ex-husband died in mysterious circumstances ten years ago and his body was never found. Colm, her estranged son, has returned from San Francisco with his new wife, Bonnie, looking for answers.' But he must confront secrets from his own past.
Ross O Donnellan, Leonard Buckley, and Ayoola Smart feature in The Beacon. Picture: Miki Barlok
Beiv is renovating a house on an island off West Cork, where her ex-husband was from. Even though they were separated, they remained friends. It's believed that Beiv was with her ex the night he went missing.
While bonded to each other, the relationship between the pair was 'tumultuous'. With Beiv on the island is Colm's old friend, Donal. There are basically four people in the cottage over the course of a week during which ghosts from the past surface.
While Harris says a career as a playwright and screenwriter is full of ups and downs with 'no direct line of ascent,' it is also thrilling. 'I don't know what the next thing is. If you're somebody who wants certainty, it's probably not the best career.' But Harris certainly seems to have cracked it.
The Beacon is at the Everyman from Friday, July 4 to July 19. www.everymancork.com