A musical drama concerning the lifetime of John Hume, one of many fundamental forces behind the Good Friday settlement, will likely be staged subsequent yr to mark the twenty fifth anniversary of the historic deal that helped finish 30 years of violence in Northern Eire.
Past Perception, written by Damian Gorman with music by Brian O’Doherty, is the second a part of a “peace-building trilogy” on the Playhouse in Hume’s house city, Derry, after The White Handkerchief, a play concerning the occasions of Bloody Sunday, earlier this yr.
Mo Hume, the late politician’s daughter, stated the play would “current his life and work with nice integrity but additionally pleasure. My father’s profession had many triumphs, many hardships, however he was a heat, sort and humorous household man, a person who beloved to sing. He was a really proud Derry man.”
Hume’s household and the John and Pat Hume Basis are supporting the manufacturing.
Hume – the chief of the Northern Irish nationalist occasion the SDLP for greater than 20 years, a Westminster MP and a member of the European parliament – helped persuade the IRA to surrender its armed wrestle. He argued that nationalists and unionists wanted to share energy and pursue their targets by peaceable, democratic means.
After the Good Friday settlement was signed on 10 April 1998, with the UK prime minister Tony Blair declaring the “hand of historical past is upon our shoulder”, Hume and the Ulster Unionist chief David Trimble had been collectively awarded the Nobel peace prize.
Brid Rodgers, a former SDLP deputy chief and a pal of Hume’s, stated: “Lots of people consider John Hume as a determine in historical past; not many know the true, human John Hume. In addition to being an innovator, motivator and galvanizing a technology, he was good enjoyable. No occasion was ever full with out John singing.”
The drama will present Hume at his strongest and his weakest, stated its director, Kieran Griffiths. Hume had dementia in the direction of the tip of his life. “When he was most weak, he’d generally be misplaced in his personal metropolis. Individuals in Derry would gently take his arm and see him house, with none sense of shaming.”
Griffiths added: “His relationship along with his spouse, Pat, is essential – they had been a joint drive. In a quite simple sense, Past Perception is a love story.”
When Hume died in August 2020, Covid restrictions meant there may very well be solely a small funeral. “Individuals had been robbed of the prospect to say a correct goodbye. I’m hoping the play will give the group and the broader diaspora an opportunity to put their arms on him.”
In recent times, the power-sharing preparations arrange underneath the Good Friday settlement have been periodically in jeopardy. Rodgers stated: “This drama will remind folks what’s at stake, what John was making an attempt to realize and the way vital it’s that it endures.”