A novel idea for veteran playwright McGuinness

Frank McGuinness has a new play at the Abbey, his first novel has just been published, he lectures at university, and lunch is the working man’s take-out, ham roll, eaten between interview, phone calls and the next appointment, which is looming before the hour is up.

A good marketing person would tell McGuinness to push the goods and cut the small talk. But McGuinness is talking about tennis player Andy Murray and he’s sublimely distracted.

“When he won Wimbledon, I wept,” he says. “It was the vindication of Dunblane, the great tribute to his home town, after all it came through. I love the fact that he has triumphed.”