“I want fame. Real proper fame. A thunderstorm of fame.”Irina (Aisling O’Sullivan), a fading star of the stage, returns to her family estate to see her volatile son Konstantin with her lover Boris in tow. Nina, an aspiring actress and Konstantin’s newest obsession, draws everyone - including Boris -into her orbit and the tensions simmering beneath the surface of this idyllic countryside retreat begin to bubble over. Ambitions collide, resentments surface and longing spirals out of control. How do we shape each other? What happens when we don’t get what we want? What happens when we do? Following the sell-out successes of Uncle Vanya in 2025 and A Streetcar Named Desire in 2024, Cathal Cleary returns to Smock Alley this Christmas with another unmissable classic. The Seagull gets a bold, contemporary reimagining from Simon Stephens, bringing Chekhov’s famously dysfunctional family vividly into the here and now.Age Suitability: 12+ CAST Aisling O’Sullivan WRITTEN BY Anton Chekhov ADAPTED BY Simon Stephens LITERAL TRANSLATION BY Helen Rappaport DIRECTED BY Cathal Cleary SET DESIGN BY Alyson Cummins COSTUME DESIGN BY Mae Leahy LIGHTING DESIGN BY Stephen DoddSOUND DESIGN BY Ultan de Stáinleigh ASSISTANT DIRECTOR Úna Ní Nualláin PRODUCER Muirenn Lyons PRODUCTION MANAGER Pius McGrath, Honest ArtsDEPUTY PRODUCTION MANAGER Gavan Bourke, Honest ArtsCOMPANY MANAGER Morgan Steele, Once Off Productions GRAPHIC DESIGN BY Louise BradyPREVIEW / MATINEE TICKETS €24TICKETS €27 | €24RUNNING TIME 2 hrs 50 mins incl 15 min intervalABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHTSAnton Chekhov (1860–1904) was a Russian playwright and author. His career as a playwright produced four famous classics, The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard. He was the author of hundreds of short stories and several plays and is regarded by many as both the greatest Russian storyteller and the father of modern drama.Simon Stephens is a multi-award-winning playwright. His plays for theatre include Heisenberg, Birdland, Punk Rock, Harper Regan, Pornography, Motortown and Bluebird; adaptations include Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard and The Seagull. Awards include the Pearson Award for Best New Play for Port and the Olivier Award for Best New Play for On the Shore of the Wide World. His adaptation of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time won seven Olivier Awards and five Tony Awards. He is an Associate at the Royal Court, London and Steep Theatre Company, Chicago.ABOUT THE DIRECTORCathal Cleary is an award-winning director from Roscommon who has worked extensively in Ireland & UK. Last year he directed UNCLE VANYA (Smock Alley) along with A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE in 2024, and has launched an EARLY-CAREER DIRECTORS’ SCHEME. In 2018 he directed FURNITURE (Druid, Irish Theatre Award), PORCELAIN and MADHOUSE (both Abbey). Also, THE HALF OF IT (Dublin Fringe 2017) nominated for five Fringe Awards & won one. He won the JMK Award for DISCO PIGS (Young Vic 2011) and was the first Donmar Trainee Artistic Director. He has also directed THOM PAIN (Smock Alley 2024) and the national tour of BLUE THUNDER (2023).ABOUT THE COMPANYFounded in 2006 by Maura O’Keeffe, Once Off Productions provides a structured, supportive, and creative producing platform for independent performance artists. Dedicated to nurturing ambitious, innovative, and collaborative work, the company operates nationally and internationally at all scales. With a strong commitment to bringing live performance to audiences in both traditional and unconventional spaces, Once Off Productions plays a vital role in supporting artists to realise complex and ambitious projects.REVIEWS “A bright, often brilliant production, Uncle Vanya is a crowning success.” – Chris O'Rourke, The Arts Review on Uncle Vanya “A fine opportunity to see one of the best plays ever written.” – Katy Hayes, Irish Independent on Uncle Vanya “Funny and devastating.”– The Sunday Independent on Uncle Vanya “An impressive production of a modern classic rarely performed in Ireland” - No More Workhorse on A Streetcar Named Desire

This workshop looks at how we can give bold, decisive and varied readings with little or no time to prepare.Hosted by Harvey Robinson. Harvey is an actor, composer and tutor with experience in theatre, TV and radio. He has worked with the BBC and Channel 4, and performed on the West End, Broadway and a number of national tours.Please arrive at the Box Office five minutes before the workshop is due to start. There is nothing to prepare for the workshop. Please bring pen, paper, water, and an extra layer as The Studio can be chilly. If you have any access requirements, please email Harvey at td@liverpoolsroyalcourt.com. Tickets are non-refundable after 15 October.

I’ll Be Seeing YouWritten by Martin ShermanDirected by Alan Cumming and Ben OcchipintiA Pitlochry Festival Theatre ProductionPresented with thanks, by special arrangement with the Liberace Foundation for the Performing and Creative Arts“One of the top 10 theatre shows to see this autumn” — The GuardianWhat if Liberace walked into a play about Liberace?That’s the problem. Because when you’re writing about the greatest showman of them all, what happens when the man himself turns up to check your work?Simon Russell Beale and Fra Fee go head-to-head in a gloriously bonkers, fabulously funny new play about Liberace: the rhinestones, the ego, the glamour, the scandal, the piano… and the man behind it all.He was flamboyant. He was outrageous. And he knew exactly how to put on a show. And, frankly, he still does. But somewhere behind the sequins, the furs and the forty rings was someone who spent a lifetime deciding exactly how much of himself the world was allowed to see.Come meet Liberace. Get ready for the glitter.

Everything is falling apart. She’s buried up to her neck. Literally. And she’s never been happier.Beckett’s Happy Days is the original “main character refuses to give up” story. It’s absurd, darkly comic, and oddly comforting. If existential dread is your vibe but you also want to laugh about it, Siobhán Redmond is about to make this your new favourite thing.

Dylan is having a bad week. In the clutches of a minimum wage gig, on the precipice of eviction, and under the iron thumb of the DWP, he’s discovering even bigger problems: there’s a vicious creature nesting deep in the depths of his soul… and it wants out.

When three strangers attend a queer book club and find the leader absent, they decide to run it themselves. In their search for community, their assumptions of one another are challenged as they struggle with identity, disability, relationships, and isolation.

It's 1969 and a woman looks back on her life in London. From the Boer War to The Summer of Love, Flo Smith, daughter, sister, wife, mother, widow and grandmother recalls with horror, humour, tears and joy those turbulent times at home, and, in the world beyond her front door."At the end of the sixties, I was a drama student in my final year, casting around for a subject for my dissertation I hit on the idea of interviewing and recording the reminiscences of Florence Smith, my paternal grandmother. ""Nanny"" Smith was happy to oblige and so for several days in the Spring of 1969, I sat in her cosy living room at Richie House, Hazelville Road, North London, drinking copious amounts of tea and listening avidly while Nanny Smith filled spool after spool of my tape recorder with her recollections.Florence told me of her Victorian childhood, her marriage to a young man who was later seriously wounded in the First World War (my grandfather), her struggle to put food on the table for her three hungry children in the 1930s, and her harrowing experiences of the London Blitz. For the times, it was a common enough story and yet, for all that, a unique one too, as unique as any human being's life." - Christopher Saul

Gina Yashere is an internationally acclaimed comedian, actress, writer and producer whose remarkable journey has taken her from the streets of East London to the bright lights of Hollywood. One of Britain's most successful comedy exports, Gina has become a household name on both sides of the Atlantic thanks to her fearless stand-up, unmistakable storytelling and trailblazing career. Most recently, Gina has boldly gone where few comedians have gone before, joining the cast of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy as the formidable Cadet Master Lura Thok opposite Academy Award winner Holly Hunter, introducing her to an entirely new generation of fans.

On an ordinary night, Brad and Janet— two twenty-something kids with conservative values and unexplored repression— find themselves soaking wet when their car breaks down in a storm. Searching for a telephone, they stumble into a nearby castle where asking for help costs them their dignity, their inhibitions, and their clothes. Inside, they find a lineup of edgy, horny, and eccentric party guests and misfits, all hosted by the edgier, hornier, and eccentric-er Dr. Frank ‘N’ Furter. With everyone watching, Frank unlocks the secret to life (science, not sex!) and maybe even the secret to Brad and Janet’s lives (a whole lot of sex). Hijinks, confusion, and strange encounters ensue, rocked by a killer soundtrack and audience traditions of costumes, props, and many, many shoutouts. We promise you’ll have a good time, but we can’t promise you won’t get wet…

Two strangers. Twenty-four hours. One encounter that could change everything.In Gairloch, 1987, two people whose lives have taken very different turns find themselves unexpectedly thrown together.What begins as a chance encounter soon becomes something neither of them expected. As conversation and laughter give way to suspicion and uncomfortable truths, a connection begins to form. But despite the distance from the outside world, something is closing in, and both must decide how far they are prepared to trust a stranger before time runs out.Funny, moving and deeply human, A Thousand Invisible Choices is an award-winning Scottish play about trust, second chances, and the tiny decisions that can change the course of our lives.Winner of the 2026 Geoffrey Whitworth Trophy and Scott Salver for Best Original Script.

It’s 12:15am, April 15th, 1912. Titanic has hit an iceberg. Over 2,000 lives depend on three men – Titanic radio operators Jack Phillips & Harold Bride, and Carpathia radio operator Harold Cottam…and the radio set that broke the day before.

Gina Yashere is an internationally acclaimed comedian, actress, writer and producer whose remarkable journey has taken her from the streets of East London to the bright lights of Hollywood. One of Britain's most successful comedy exports, Gina has become a household name on both sides of the Atlantic thanks to her fearless stand-up, unmistakable storytelling and trailblazing career. Most recently, Gina has boldly gone where few comedians have gone before, joining the cast of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy as the formidable Cadet Master Lura Thok opposite Academy Award winner Holly Hunter, introducing her to an entirely new generation of fans