Disco Pigs: Play that launched Cillian Murphy to get 30th anniversary revival in Cork Cork’s most famous play is about to get a revival to mark its 30th anniversary. Disco Pigs, the 1996 tale from Corcadorca theatre company that spawned the career of Cillian Murphy, has been announced as part of the Everyman’s new season. Whereas Murphy and co-star Eileen Walsh won’t be reprising their roles, playwright Enda Walsh is returning to Cork to direct the work that set him on the path to international renown. The 59-year-old went on to work with the likes of David Bowie on the play Lazarus, has recently penned the script for a new version of the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang film, and was tempted back to his classic Leeside stomping ground by Des Kennedy, artistic director of the Everyman. “I like to programme Cork-related material, and I knew it was the 30th anniversary of Disco Pigs, so I approached Enda. I was delighted when he said he’d love to direct it himself,” says Kennedy, who’d previously worked with Walsh on the stage musical version of Once. “I remember seeing the original Disco Pigs as a teenager with Cillian and Eileen at the Old Museum Arts Centre in Belfast. I was a young lad from the Twinbrook estate in West Belfast and I loved the two defiant angry teenagers that the world didn’t give a shit about. It was just intoxicating.” Enda Walsh, the writer of Disco Pigs, is returning to Cork to direct the play. After debuting at the Triskel in Cork, Disco Pigs went on to win numerous awards, and toured in Ireland and the UK, eventually being adapted into a film. Disco Pigs launched the careers of its writer, Tony Award winner Enda Walsh, and actors Cillian Murphy and Eileen Walsh when it premiered in Cork in 1996.
74