Life’s a beach for Yeats play by Blue Raincoat

When Sligo theatre company Blue Raincoat performed WB Yeats’s Purgatory on the top of Knocknarea mountain last summer it proved a breath of fresh air for both the audience and the performers.

It’s no surprise, then, to find the company are heading back outside for a second gulp. On Saturday they will perform Yeats’s accomplished play, On Baile’s Strand, on a five-mile stretch of beach below the same mountain.

“I was very taken by the level of interest in it last year,” says Blue Raincoat director, Niall Henry. “Three hundred people came up the mountain to watch it and there were 80,000 ‘likes’ on the social media. So I was happily surprised. But last year we were still learning how to perform a play outdoors so there’s room for us to improve with the new show. If we get a lot of wind we’re fucked, but you have to take the risk. It could be amazing.”