Writer’s In Bag for Life play coming to Downpatrick

Writer’s In Bag for Life play coming to Downpatrick

10 May 2017

IN his recently released film The Journey, Colin Bateman considered the unlikely friendship between political enemies Martin McGuinness and Ian Paisley and how it changed the course of Northern Ireland’s history.

His acclaimed play Bag for Life is the other side of the coin.

The central character here is Karen. She is in Tesco’s one Saturday when she runs slap bang into a fellow shopper — a happy family man who she realises is the ex-paramilitary who murdered her brother 22 years ago. Thus begins a cycle of revenge, psychosis and obsession.

This is the second play from the Northern Irish writer, who has written 36 novels as well as ing TV shows such as Murphy’s Law.

Bag for Life, coming to Down Arts Centre on Friday as part of its 2017 tour, asks the question — Can forgiveness overcome the want for revenge in 21st century Northern Ireland?

It’s a tense, gripping thriller, shot through with Colin Bateman’s trademark pitch black humour. It’s also a one-woman show and actress Julie Addy has Karen’s thoughts, whims and delusions brought to life by an intricate series of video displays capturing her frantic fractured mindset.

Beginning its life as a short story for Radio 4, Bag for Life was commissioned as a legacy project back in 2013 for Derry-Londonderry 2013 UK City of Culture.

Reflecting on the links between The Journey and Bag for Life, Colin said: “They are in some ways connected, they mirror each other. Two people can get past their problems and go into government for peace. But Karen cannot get past what has happened. She cannot deal with it. 

“At the same time this is me looking back on it all, I wasn’t thinking about the links at the time.”

Among the questions the play considers is what to make of the men of violence whose time has been and gone and have now settled into civilian life. Has their capacity for murder drained away?

“Everybody wants to be able to forgive, but if it’s your family it’s a very hard thing to do,” said Colin.

“It is quite a dark piece but it’s also very funny,” he added. “It’s a thriller but it will also make you think. You’ll come out asking questions about how you would deal in certain situations.”

With Stormont on its knees again and victim and legacy issues one of the stumbling blocks, both Bag for Life and The Journey have an added significance that Colin couldn’t have predicted.

“It is timely,” he said. “A lot of politicians have watched the film and the reaction from the opening screening was great. I was worried. Northern Ireland people have strong opinions but it was a film not just for here. It had to be for audiences watching it in Japan or Germany or Chile too. 

“Outside Northern Ireland most people have no idea about this place so you have to continue to explain certain things in the film.

“In Bag for Life also, I have had people come up to me at the end in tears, saying they feel they have been understood. Julie playing Karen is also a real tour de force, really, really good technically.”

Colin, a former journalist in the Bangor Spectator, first came under the spotlight when his debut novel Divorcing Jack was turned into a hit film. And following the profile of The Journey, it’s film where he wants to concentrate his efforts in the near future.

“I’ve always been a huge movie fan,” he said. “When I was very young I was always writing reviews. I ended up writing a lot of punk reviews too in my time at the Spectator, The editor, Anne Roycroft, was what you would have described then as a spinster character, a Sunday school teacher, but she gave me remarkable freedom. That’s what helped turn into the writer I am today. So much of if goes back to the Spectator and the opportunities I got there.”

Bag for Life will be performed in Down Arts Centre on Friday at 8pm, with the bar open from 7pm. Tickets cost £12/£10 concession. Contact the box office on 028 4461 0747.