A dole clerk’s revelation in the Troubles

Conor Grimes plays a Northern Irish bigot who comes to his senses in A Night in November, Colette Sheridan reports

WAKING up to the dangers of sectarianism is the theme of A Night in November, which runs at Cork’s Everyman Theatre from Sept 24-29. The one-man show, written by Marie Jones, is performed by Conor Grimes. It’s about an Ulster Protestant dole clerk, Kenneth Norman McCallister, who has discriminated against Catholics throughout his life.

Set in the early 1990s, Grimes describes the play as “brilliant. It’s about this man who gets to a point where he can’t stomach sectarianism anymore. It’s set during the time when things were really reaching a head, just before the IRA ceasefire. At that time, loyalists had started going into bars and shooting people. The atrocities were beyond belief.”

McCallister brings his father to Windsor Park to see the Republic’s soccer team play Northern Ireland. Jack’s Army needs a draw to get to the World Cup in the USA. “At the game, everyone is shouting ‘trick or treat’, which is a reference to the Greysteel Massacre that happened on Halloween night in 1993.”

The Ulster Defence Association killed eight people that night and injured 13. “The shouting of ‘trick or treat’ at the Republic’s fans sickens Kenneth. He realises that he isn’t one of those people. He knows he has to change his life.”

Grimes, who is from Tyrone, plays about 30 characters in the play. It is his first time acting in a one-man show.

The play “is very challenging. I’m well used to the company of other actors. To be standing out on stage on your own is something that’s brand new for me. In that situation, an actor has nowhere to hide.”

Grimes describes the play as “a pitch dark comedy. It deals with a very serious issue. On another level, it’s about a man who is not happy and decides to make himself happy. He goes on an incredible journey, travelling to the US, following Jack’s Army. He gathers up all his money in the middle of the night and goes to Dublin, crossing the border for the first time. He goes to New York and is like a fish out of water. Kenneth was taught to be always afraid, afraid of the black magic down south.”

The play shows how McCallister deals with his identity crisis through monologues and soliloquies and interaction with the other characters that he plays. Grimes says that Jones has written “an absolutely fascinating close-up of an ordinary man. I think Kenneth is actually Marie Jones. She has twisted things around and created a male character with plenty of drama going on. You wouldn’t believe that a woman has written this play.”

Grimes feels that Jones, whose hit shows include Stones in His Pockets and Women on the Verge of HRT, doesn’t get “the respect she deserves. She’s commercial, and there’s a snobbery about that.

“People have pigeon-holed Marie. But A Night in November is a very detailed look at one man. It reminds me of some of James Joyce’s short stories. I’m sure Marie didn’t mean to emulate Joyce — and I don’t mean that in any negative way — but she is telling a great story that was bursting out of her. It all came naturally.”

Grimes says the snobbery surrounding commercial success in the theatre “is unbelievable. I co-wrote The History of the Troubles (according to my da) and it’s the number one play in Northern Ireland. It’s the only show there that sells out at the Grand Opera House in Belfast. It was written in 2002 and broke all records. I had a phone call from Gerry Adams looking for tickets. But it was just billed as commercial theatre. I don’t think it was ever even reviewed. But that’s how it works.”

Grimes’s collaborator is Alan McKee. “He wrote The History of the Troubles with me. We have been working together for ten years. We’re both entrepreneurs insofar as an actor can be. We couldn’t bear waiting for the phone to ring so we started booking venues and doing shows. We do a lot of comedy in Belfast. We do annual Christmas shows for adults which are Monty Pythonesque.”

About two years ago, Grimes & McKee (as they are known) had their bizarre television programme, The Tractor Show, broadcast on BBC Northern Ireland. “We took two tractors around the North on a trip that lasted for three and a half weeks. We filmed everything. From day to day, we never knew where we were staying. It was chaos, but it was good fun too.”

At the moment, Grimes — part-serious actor, part-comic performer — is concentrating on theatre. His next show, in which he stars along with McKee, is called McHughs and will be performed at the Belfast Festival at Queens. It’s about the history of a pub, going back 300 years.

A Night in November is not about soccer per se. But Grimes promises that audiences will be thrilled by the re-enactment of Ray Houghton’s crucial goal

. “It was a magic time in Irish history.”