New play from Liam Heylin set for UCC’s Granary Theatre

All the world’s a stage for playwright and journalist Liam Heylin, whose latest play, West for the Weekend, is about a lawyer with a gambling problem.

Heylin, a court reporter for the Irish Examiner and Evening Echo and a theatre critic for the latter newspaper, moonlights as a playwright. His popular comedy, Love, Peace and Robbery, returned to the Everyman recently, having had several productions since it was first performed in 2007.

While that play focused on the criminal underworld, West for the Weekend is about white-collar crime. “I always felt I was going to write a play about a gambler,” says Heylin. “Gambling is one of those extreme approaches to life, which is very colourful, unlike my personal approach which would be safer. It’s attractive to look at a gambler figure that is feckless and wild and takes chances. A gambler is a dramatic type of character in real life to begin with and lends itself to representation in theatre.”