Shoot the Crow

Written by: Owen McCafferty

Produced by:

A Belfast building site. Four tilers on the make, each dreaming of better things. But not all of them can commit the same petty crime. Acutely observed and brilliantly witty, SHOOT THE CROW is a hilarious and moving homage to the working man.

 James Nesbitt (Socrates) has worked prolifically in television, film and theatre, although he is probably best known for his portrayal of Adam Williams in all four series of the ITV drama Cold Feet, for which he won the British Comedy Award for Best Comedy Actor.  More recently he has played the title role in three series of Murphy?s Law, and in the BBC's The Miller's Tale.  His films include Danny Boyle's Millions, Bloody Sunday (for which he won the Stockholm Film Festival Award for Best Actor), Waking Ned, Welcome to Sarajevo and Detective Mike in Woody Allen's Match Point, to be released next year.  Amongst his theatre credits are Jesus in the Bush Theatre?s production of Darwin's Flood and Translations at the Birmingham Rep.

Conleth Hill (Petesy) has appeared most recently in the multi award-winning musical The Producers (for which he won the Olivier Award for Best Supporting Performance in a Musical) and he co-starred in the hit Michael Frayn play Democracy at the National Theatre and in the West End.  His performance in the original cast of Stones In His Pockets (in Ireland, London and subsequently in Toronto and New York) won him an Olivier Award and a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor. He has appeared in several seasons at the Lyric Theatre Belfast, including in Waiting for Godot and Conversations on a Homecoming and has also starred in After Darwin in Dublin and Belfast. 

Jim Norton(Ding Ding) has appeared prolifically in the West End and at the National Theatre and has appeared in Conor McPherson's Port Authority (The Gate Dublin and The New Ambassadors Theatre), Come On Over (The Abbey Theatre Dublin), The Weir (original cast at the Royal Court, Gate Theatre Dublin and on Broadway, for which he was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best Actor) and Dublin Carol (at the Atlantic Theatre, New York for which he won the OBIE for Best Actor). At the National Theatre his credits include Peter Hall's Hamlet, Bill Bryden's Playboy of the Western World and also Michael Blakemore's The Wild Duck at the Lyric Hammersmith.  

Packy Lee (Randolph)made his London stage debut as 'Swiz' in Owen McAfferty?s Scenes from the Big Picture at National Theatre, directed by Peter Gill. His theatre credits include A Whistle in the Dark (Glasgow Citizens Theatre), New Years Eve Can Kill You and Marching On (both at the Lyric Theatre Belfast). On television, Packy will appear as 'Heaney' in Macbeth (alongside James McAvoy) as part of the BBC?s Autumn season of modern dramatisations of Shakespeare. His other television credits include You Lookin at Me (Channel 4), Holy Cross and As the Beast Sleeps (both BBC).

Owen McCafferty was born in Belfast in 1961. After several jobs including tiling, and working in an abattoir, he became a full-time writer.  His recent work includes Closing Time for the National Theatre's 2002 Loft Season and Scenes From The Big Picture at the National's Cottesloe Theatre in 2003 which won the John Whiting Award, The Meyer Whitworth Award and the Evening Standard Charles Wintour Award for New Playwriting. He is currently commissioned to write a new play for the National Theatre.  His new stage version of JP Miller's Days of Wine & Roses, directed by Peter Gill and starring Anne Marie Duff, has recently finished its highly successful run at the Donmar Warehouse. Other work includes a production of Cold Comfort in Belfast, which he also directed, an adaptation of Ionesco's The Chairs, No Place Like Home and Court Room No 1 for Tinderbox Theatre Company in Belfast and Mojo Mickybo for Kabosh Theatre Company, also produced in Boston. Owen was writer on attachment to the National Theatre Studio in 1999. A Working Title film based on Mojo Mickybo, entitled Micky Bo and Me, starring Julie Walters, Adrian Dunbar and Gina McKee, and directed by Terry Loane, was released to excellent reviews earlier this year.

McCafferty's plays show a truly original grasp of language and the complexities, both comic and tragic, of Belfast life. As a playwright he creates an authentic poetry out of the Belfast dialect and his dramas transcend the cliches of political writing to document the lives of ordinary men and women of his home town.