Stones in His Pockets: Playwright Marie Jones on her hit work that's coming to Cork 

The Kerry-set drama has had versions in almost 40 languages, the playwright  tells Colette Sheridan

Stones In His Pockets, by Marie Jones, is at the Everyman in Cork. 

Belfast playwright Marie Jones says she has seen enough productions, including poorly executed ones of her hit play, Stones in His Pockets, to last a lifetime. She wanted to put it to rest. “As my mother would say, ‘it doesn’t owe you anything',” says Jones.

Speaking from Greece where she has a second home, Jones was however impressed by a new plan for the drama that won the 2001 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Comedy and played at the West End for four years. Actor Gerard McCabe (who stars in the two-hander with Shaun Blaney) decided he wanted to work with award-winning director, Matthew McElhinney (a son of Marie Jones) in a new production of the play.

The story is well known to regular theatregoers. Set in a rural town in Co Kerry, a Hollywood film crew arrives to make a movie. The play centres around two friends, Charlie and Jake, who are employed as extras on the film. Charlie has aspirations to get his script made into a movie while Jake, recently returned from the US, is, like everyone else, enthralled by Caroline, the star of the movie. However, the townspeople, initially thrilled at the presence of Hollywood actors, begin to feel used and the glamour wears off. A tragedy ensues and Charlie and Jake decide to write the story of what happened. When they present their film idea to the American director, he says it’s not commercial enough.

Jones was reassured that a fresh take on Stones in His Pockets, with a novelty filmed sequence at the end, would work. This Barn Theatre production has been made in a more contemporary way. “They have brought technology into it. As it’s about the film industry, that is brought onto the stage, without taking away from the narrative,” says Jones. 

 The film in the closing scene is of bona fide stars, Liam Neeson, Ciaran Hinds and Adrian Dunbar playing extras. They all made appearances in Derry Girls and having seen the play over the years, were agreeable to being included in this new production. Granda Joe from Derry Girls(played by Ian McElhinney, Jones’s husband) is also in the film sequence and Jones herself is in it.

A scene from Stones In His Pockets. 

The production has toured England and was at the Lyric in Belfast before coming back to the republic where it will be staged at the Everyman for nearly two weeks.

Jones says that her son knows the play very well. “I don’t interfere with what he’s doing.” She has two other sons, an engineer and a journalist.

Part of the appeal of Stones in His Pockets to theatre venues is down to the fact that it’s economical, says Jones. “It has only two actors. Also, it has a good history. And it’s about the movies, an industry that fascinates everyone. It’s putting the movies on stage, if you like. The two guys in the play have nothing going for them apart from being extras. It’s a good story of ordinary guys in an extraordinary situation. It’s a story of friendship and survival. That’s probably the appeal. In terms of how it’s executed, you have the two actors playing everybody. It’s quite magical for audiences. The actors change characters so quickly, sometimes with just a body movement. You see a guy who is quite butch make a gesture with his hair, a flick, and that’s Caroline, the American star.” 

 Jones has never been happy that the play has always been billed as a comedy. With a tragic event at the centre of it, she says it’s neither a comedy nor a tragedy. “There’s no genre really. In 2001, when it won the Best New Comedy award in the Olivier Awards, that sort of sent it on its way.” 

The play has been produced in about 37 languages. “I’ve seen it in many languages. While it’s hard to criticise it when you don’t know the language, you can watch the audience reaction. I’ve seen many productions of it in English and some of them were dreadful. I nearly prefer to watch it in a foreign language because it’s all about physical gestures.” 

 Jones has been described as a populist writer. “I think that’s great. I don’t see anything wrong with that. Who doesn’t want to be popular? People think that if you’re called a populist writer, you’re not taken seriously. I don’t pay any heed to that. As long as people are happy and they’re being entertained and are feeling what I’ve tried to communicate, then that’s fine. I don’t care what they call me.” 

• Stones in His Pockets is at the Everyman from Tuesday July 29-August 10. See www.everymancork.com