This is Paradise

I feel so fucking silly but I thought they meant real peace fucking hell Katey I thought they meant that even my body it might stop breaking Northern Ireland, 1998. The Good Friday Agreement has just been signed, politicians are shaking hands and declaring peace in our time, when Kate receives an urgent phone call. As she travels to the coastal town of Portbenoney to confront an old lover, dark memories of their time together rise in her like a river. This is Paradise by Michael John O'Neill speaks in a fierce and powerful voice. With brutal lyricism, it examines the legacy of violence and asks how we can begin to mend in its wake. The play opened at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, in July 2022.

Michael John O'Neill is a playwright, dramaturg and theatre producer from the north coast of Ireland. Michael's first play, Akedah, won the Bruntwood Prize Original New Voice Award 2019 and premiered in the Hampstead Theatre Downstairs in 2023. His second play This is Paradise was presented at Traverse Theatre in both 2021 and 2022 as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and won the Popcorn Writing Award 2021. In 2020 his digital short Sore Afraid was produced by National Theatre of Scotland, Citizens Theatre, and BBC Scotland, and his audio short Part of That World was produced by Pitlochry Festival Theatre. He is developing new plays with the Almeida Theatre (as part of the Genesis New Writers' Programme), Lyric Theatre Belfast and National Theatre of Scotland (as Writer on Attachment). In 2022 he completed the BBC Voices Programme and was shortlisted for the Element Pictures Northern Irish Writers' Award. He has an original TV show in development with House Productions. His work as a theatre producer includes as Artistic Producer of the Tron Theatre (2014-2020), where he founded the Tron's new work department and commissioned and produced Isobel McArthur's Pride & Prejudice* (*sort of).