Killian makes his Day in 'Donegal'

Killian Donnelly is standing on the roof of the Abbey Theatre, the wind audible on his phone as he surveys the city of Dublin with its new Samuel Beckett Bridge and new glass office blocks along the quays.
It’s almost a decade since he left the Dublin stage to make his name in the West End of London, and despite the fact that he has reached dizzying heights there, he says that working at the Abbey Theatre is the pinnacle of theatrical success.
The Kilmessan actor, who cut his teeth with St Mary’s Musical Society in Navan, is playing one of the lead roles in the world premiere of Frank McGuinness’ musical drama ‘Donegal’, which opened in the Abbey as part of the Dublin Theatre Festival.
“I was just finishing up a year on ‘Kinky Boots’ in London when I got the call from the Abbey Theatre to see would I be interested in a new Frank McGuinness work,” Killian says.
It was something he couldn’t turn down. He had first been in the Abbey at the age of 12, to see ‘The Plough and the Stars’.
“All the stage and screen greats have tread that stage,” he says, listing out names like Joseph Fiennes and Alan Rickman. “It’s very prestigious, and a great privilege, especially to play a lead in the first ever production of a Frank McGuinness work to an Irish audience, to any audience.”
Frank McGuinness had seen him perform on stage, and had requested he play the role of Jackie Day, a member of a musical Donegal family who returns from the United States after a period away.
“You never know who’s watching you when you’re in a show in London,” says the actor and singer whose recent credits include lead singer Deco in ‘The Commitments’, and leading roles in in ‘Memphis’ opposite Beverly Knight, and in ‘Kinky Boots’, a show about a young man who inherits his father’s struggling show company, and finds that there is a market for supplying knee high red boots to drag queens.
There’s a somewhat similar theme running through ‘Donegal’, says Killian, as the play deals with tough issues like family and sexuality, with some dark issues, but laced with humour.
“My character, Jackie Day, is a singer who returns home from the US with a successful career, as his mother’s showband stardom is on the decline. The family has to accept that he’s gay, and there are other issues too.”
It’s possibly not a topic that would have been dealt with so openly on Dublin stages a decade ago, before Killian went to London.
“No, and it’s set in the modern day,” Killian says. “It made me feel very proud to be Irish in London, looking at the marriage equality referendum being passed, to see our little country being the first to pass such legislation. It allows homosexuality to be talked about openly, and will help the next generation flourish. And it will allow it be a topic on stage.”
Unlike McGuinness’ ‘Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme’, this work has more of a musical theme to fuel the narrative.
Composed by Kevin Doherty and directed by Conall Morrisson, the cast of actors and musicians also includes Deirdre Donnelly, Jason Duffy, Kenneth Edge, Imogen Gunner, John Kavanagh, Frank Laverty, Jack Maher, Siobhan McCarthy, Keith McErlean, Ruth McGill, Eleanor Methven, Conor O’Farrell Brady, and Megan Riordan. Donegal runs at the Abbey until 19th November.