Written by Johnny McKnight
Directed by Jack Nurse
Performed by Maureen Beattie, Ron Swanson, Gavin Scott, Nick Wakeham, Tricia Reynolds, Helen Halpin, Maureen McGuire, Anne Harcourt, Ciara Brady, Marie McWilliams
**** “A triumph for all involved and perfectly highlights our need for connection and shared experiences as both humans and a theatre audience.” Broadway World
World Premiere 1-3rd April 2021
There’s a saying we have in the theatre – Thank god there’s no interval. But there’s an older, more spiritual nugget, coined by our very own Queen… The Show Must Go On. Never truer words have been spoken. The. Show. Must. Go. On. Queen also said, ‘I want to ride my bicycle,’ so they really are a sort of Nostradamus when you think about those new bike lanes in the High Street.
Jan’s last year was a total horror show – and she had a corkscrew spiral perm in ‘89, so she knows a thing or two about heartache and misery. But no more. It’s a New Year. A new Jan. She’s got a fire in her belly and a new show she’s desperate to rehearse. After a full year am-dram company The Gaiety Whirlers are back and ready to take to the stage. Only… well lockdown’s still not been lifted, has it? But Jan is determined and channelling Queen, the SHOW will go on – she just has to navigate rehearsing over zoom, dealing with a most unwelcome participant, oh and the small matter of how the hell do you do a musical when some of the Whirlers don’t even have 4G.
A new comedy that takes Year of the Rona and replaces it with Year of the Jan. It’s a show for anyone who wanted to run down the street screaming NO every time we have another zoom call to make; for those who saw the families on Gogglebox more than their own; and for all us who want to put that last year behind them and get back in the theatre, to return to that sense of being together as a community. An hilarious show guaranteed to make us feel closer to each other than we have all of last year. Are you ready to meet Jan Black?
johnny mcknight - writer and director 