Nick Danan and Ed Hulme of Strange Fish Theatre told David Hennessy about their Christmas production of Conor McPherson’s St Nicholas.
Strange Fish Theatre Company return to the Omnibus Theatre with St Nicholas, the dark and supernatural tale of vampires roaming the streets of London.
Written by the great Irish playwright Conor McPherson, St Nicholas features Nick Danan in a tale of primal urges and redemption.
The story sees a jaded and cynical Dublin theatre critic fall for a beautiful young actress.
His obsession and desires lead him to abandon his life and strike an irreversible bargain with a coven of modern-day vampires.
They offer him a tantalising new life- his part of the bargain is to help them feed their bloodlust.
St Nicholas challenges the boundaries between reality and the supernatural and weaves a story that is both unsettling and deeply human.
With its haunting narrative and evocative storytelling, St Nicholas offers a dark alternative to the traditional Christmas show.
Strange Fish Theatre Company have previously staged three acclaimed productions at Omnibus Theatre: The Matchbox; Quietly and The Turn of the Screw. The last two productions featured Nick Danan.
Conor McPherson is the internationally renowned playwright whose work often contemplates themes such as loneliness, redemption, and the supernatural.
His work includes The Weir, Girl from the North Country, Shining City and Port Authority.
He was named by The New York Times as “the finest playwright of his generation”.
Founded in 2016, Strange Fish Theatre Company is dedicated to bringing the best of Irish theatre to audiences across the UK.
Nick Danan, Artistic Director of Strange Fish, has appeared in both West End and regional theatres throughout the UK.
He is currently filming as a series regular in the new crime mystery The Puzzle Lady starring Phyllis Logan for Channel 5.
The Irish World caught up with one of Strange Fish’s founders Nick Danan, who is from Belfast, and the show’s director, Ed Hulme.
What does the play St Nicholas mean to you?
Nick: “It’s Conor McPherson so you know you’re in good hands.
“It was an earlier play of his, so it’s not been done for a while.
“I was just very, very excited by it when I read it because it was just such a brilliant yarn.
“Reading it, it was a real page turner.
“I really wanted to know what happened next.
“He’s such a brilliant storyteller and it’s just a very exciting, gripping tale.
“That was the thing that initially drew it to me.
“Then what drew to me in as an actor, the idea of actually performing it was just how many layers this guy’s got.
“He’s complicated.
“He’s nuanced.
“He’s shocking.
“He’s funny.
“He’s sad.
“All that stuff is real catnip to an actor.
“I just thought, ‘This is great. This guy’s brilliant’.
“He’s not afraid to speak his mind so you get to say lots of things you’ve always wanted to say but never really dare say.
“He’s a brilliant character.
“I think that that’s what drew me to him.
“He goes on an extraordinary journey.
“He’s a really unpleasant fellow in the way he kind of comports himself.
“He’s a theatre critic and he’s not a nice man, but he’s never had to question how he was living his life but there was all sorts of things going wrong in his life.
“Then he gets into this extraordinary situation with the long and the short of it being he gets tangled up with a group of modern day vampires and this kind of extraordinary adventure/ threatening situation he gets into forces him to face his own demons.
“Within this incredible supernatural story about drunken shenanigans and scary vampires is this man’s journey to actually try and find redemption starting from a very poor place.
“That journey was really attractive to me as an actor.”
Ed: “It’s incredibly compelling and brilliantly written.
“I’m a big fan of story, of theatre, of film that asks the audience questions, that gets an audience to really reflect and ask questions, and think and feel something.
“This play really does that and it does it through, like Nick said, the story of a theatre critic and vampires.
“I love when people ask me, ‘What’s it about?’
“I say, ’So it’s about this theatre critic who falls for an actress, leaves his family, travels to London and then falls in with a coven of vampires. But it’s not how it sounds’.
“You do have to see it.
“It’s like a lot of my favourite cinema.
“It’s very hard to explain what some of it’s about.
“It’s about the experience that the audience has watching it and that communication that they have with him on stage telling that story and this play because Conor McPherson’s deliberately written this for it to challenge an audience and to get an audience thinking.
“I think that’s really, really compelling for me and it gives me purpose as a director and helping to put something like this on stage.”
Nick: “The other exciting thing was all of this is packaged in a way that really leans heavily into the seanchaí tradition because he’s telling these people a story.
“He even says that.
“He says, ‘I’m going to tell you a story here’.
“And it is a brilliant story.
“Conor McPherson studied philosophy at UCD.
“He’s got all of this stuff going on about what it means to be a human, how do we examine our lives?
“But all of that is packaged in this incredible narrative.
“It’s just, as I say, a real page turner.
“There’s a real masterful storytelling element to this.
“All this is happening in a story that just sweeps you up.
“You cannot help but get sucked into the story and the way that those brilliant storytellers can do so before you know it, you’re in the middle of this insane world with all this crazy stuff happening with vampires and drunken adventures and all sorts of stuff going on.
“That’s brilliant as well because to do that in a live setting is just very exciting.”
Is it fair to say it’s one of his lesser known ones? Is St Nicholas an under an underappreciated Conor McPherson?
Nick: “It is lesser known because he was a young, unknown writer when he wrote it and it was produced at the Bush Theatre with a director I’ve worked with called Dominic Drumgoole.
“That place was very much about nurturing new talent and at the time, we’re talking about the late 90s here, he was very much new talent.
“I wouldn’t say it’s underappreciated, it’s just produced less because it’s an earlier work.
“But it’s an absolute gem of a piece.”
How would you describe the character? You say he is a critic, he is also quite bitter, isn’t he?
Nick: “Yes, he is bitter because he feels like a failure.
“He wanted to be a wonderful writer, a playwright, a novelist himself and he couldn’t manage it so a lot of his bitterness is actually self-loathing but he’s very funny about it.
“He goes through this crisis with this situation with these vampires and he ends up trying to head towards something that looks like redemption and it’s making him examine his own life.
“So when he’s in his bitter phase, he’s in denial.
“He’s drinking far too much, nobody likes him, he’s horrible to everybody else, he behaves appallingly and he’s kind of trapped in this role as the bad guy but he wants to break out of it.
“It literally has to reach crisis point for him to start to do that.
“It is all about all the mistakes we make in life one at a time and how if we’re not careful, we’ll turn around one day and realise that we’re no longer a very nice person and we need to do something about it.
“That’s his journey.”
Ed: “I think what’s really interesting about what you see as an audience member is that you see him years after the events that he’s talking about choosing to come to a theatre to tell you the story.
“There’s this kind of open dialogue with the audience that, ‘I’ve made this decision to come and tell you this story’.
“What you’re seeing is somebody trying to redeem themselves, trying to kind of get some answers to his past life and have redemption of the things that he’s done and you’re seeing that happen in real time.
“I really enjoy as a director the kind of theatricality of that, playing with that idea.”
You mention redemption a lot and of course the vampires in the story. Does redemption come somehow from or because of these vampires?
Nick: “He looks at these vampires and how they behave and he starts to see a parallel between them and him and he thinks, ‘Oh, that’s not good’.
“So that would be the inciting incident that sets him on a slightly different path.
“But as Ed says, it actually is asking questions the whole time.
“It’s not all neatly packaged in a bow with a little trite ending.
“It’s asking the audience the question, ‘What do you do to sort your own life out?’ without necessarily giving all the answers.”
Have you seen a production of it yourself? Brendan Coyle did a version of it some years ago..
Nick: “No, I didn’t and I’m sort of glad I didn’t because everybody has to make this guy their own version of this guy.
“It’s great to not have to feel like I’m stepping into somebody else’s shoes.
“Brian Cox originally played it so very big shoes to step into and I don’t have any of that pressure because this version of this theatre critic is my version of him and obviously any actor is going to be hugely informed by the writing.
“I haven’t and that’s probably a happy accident.
“I mean, I would love to see a production of it as an audience member because, like I said, it’s such a treat to sit there and be told this story.
“But as it happens, I haven’t.”
Conor McPherson is one of Ireland’s greatest living playwrights, what does he mean to you?
Nick: “I’ve always admired him.
“I just think he’s a brilliant playwright, brilliant storyteller.
“He knows how to create incredible atmosphere on stage.”
Ed: “Yeah, even rehearsing it today having spent weeks doing it last year, you’re just hearing lines in a way that you just didn’t hear them before just jumping out at you.
“I think brilliant playwrights have a way of establishing relationship, place, atmosphere, with this effortless ease and he’s one of the best living playwrights to do that.
“Before you know it, you are sucked into something.
“I think as an audience member, those really good playwrights wash over you and suddenly you understand.
“You don’t have to think about it, you just understand. I think really great playwrights do that.
“My favourite kind of playwrights can establish a relationship of a whole family in five lines of dialogue between each other and Conor McPherson is someone who does that and his record speaks for itself.
“He understands theatre, he really does.”
Nick: “Yeah, a single line will suddenly just send shivers down your spine or make you excited, or make you want to cry.
“He is absolutely brilliant.
“He’s a total master at what he does.”
Ed: “Our job really in rehearsals is to get the script- I wouldn’t say pull it apart but just kind of find the order of it, understand the way that it all fits together and works together, getting into the real detail of it.
“When you start doing that and you start kind of looking at how the machine works, you get even more respect for it, even more respect for these little moments that just help the flow, help the build of it and how something like this, which is a monologue, keeps the audience entertained, keeps them gripped for the hour and a half that it’s on.”
Nick: “Because you’d think that a monologue might be a bit heavy going.
“I had done a different Conor McPherson play which was all monologs.
“That was This Lime Tree Bower and I remember people saying, ‘It didn’t feel like I was sitting down listening to somebody just talk to me, it felt like I’d just been to the movies. I had that buzz’.
“And I think he’s such a brilliant storyteller.
“It’s just exciting to listen to his stories, to see his stories unfold.”
It’s called St Nicholas. It refers to Christmas but isn’t overly festive, is it?
Nick: “Yeah, he’s a bold one with his titles if you think about it with a lot of his plays.
“There are a few sneaky references to Christmas actually which is very handy.”
Ed: “The only way that I’ve managed to make any sense of it is that St Nicholas is someone who brings you a gift.
“That’s the only link.”
Nick: “And this guy is here saying, ‘Look, listen to me because you’ll benefit from what I’ve got to tell you’.
“I think there’s something there and also, it is a supernatural tale.
“Conor does lean into that in a number of his pieces.
“And that’s kind of wonderful to do at Christmas time too, because there was always that tradition back in the day of telling ghost stories and whatnot around Christmas time.
“I think there is definitely something about doing it this time of year where it’s cold and dark outside and you all gather somewhere warm.
“It goes back to that tradition of telling spooky stories at Christmas time around the fire.”
Ed: “But it’s very important that, despite the name, no one gets confused,
“If a primary school rock up, we’re in trouble.”
Nick: “Yeah, it’s not suitable for children. That’s for sure.
“I don’t dress up as Santa or anything like that.”
Strange Fish Theatre Company’s production of St Nicholas was nominated for Best Production at the prestigious Buxton Fringe Festival 2023 and Nick Danan’s portrayal of the tormented critic earned him the Best Actor award at the same festival.
The production has earned you awards, you must be pleased with that..
Nick: “We are very pleased and that’s partly why we wanted to do it again.
“We just felt like we really had something great on our hands and it would be great to bring it back to a London audience.
“It’s a piece we’re very proud of that we know has gone down very, very well in the past so we’re excited for more people to come and see it and obviously we hope they do.
“It’s a busy time at Christmas but I think it would be a great night out for people, I really do.
“We’re very pleased to be able to do it again and we’ve been thrilled that Conor’s been so supportive of the production and his agent’s been so supportive of us. It’s been great.”
Ed: “I think that doing this type of show, this kind of monologue really plays into Nick’s skills as an actor.
“I think it’s a brilliant performance and it’s great that we’re reviving it because I can say that.
“I’ve seen it, I know that it’s a brilliant performance and that award proves it as well.
“It’s not your average night at the theatre because it is a monologue, there’s no fourth wall. This is a man who’s come to talk to us and I think people really get something out of it and get taken on a journey in a way that maybe you wouldn’t going seeing something else.
“It’s a really great, great show, but it wouldn’t work without a really great actor at the helm.”
Nick: “I’ve been sort of hoping to get to work with Ed for a long time and I’m so pleased we finally managed to do it because he’s absolutely my kind of director.
“Any good player needs a great coach behind them and I’ve certainly got that in Ed, no question about it.”
St Nicholas is at Omnibus Theatre 17 December- 5 January. For more information, click here or call the box office at 020 7498 4699.
For more information on Strange Fish Theatre, click here.
