Creative Team

His plays have also been produced at theatres across Europe and the USA. A production of Dockers was recently nominated for a Los Angeles Drama Critics Award. His best-known stage plays include The Interrogation Of Ambrose Fogarty, Rinty, The Stone Chair, Holding Hands At Paschendale and (with Grimes & McKee) The History Of The Troubles (accordin’ to my Da).

He has written several plays for BBC Radio 4, including Needles and Pinsa and an adaptation of Ibsen’s Enemy Of The People (2006). His Short Story, Jamesy Baker and the 22 Walls was read on Radio 4 and nominated for a Sony Award. For television Martin wrote the pilot sitcom, Sailortown for Central Television. Martin co-wrote the screenplay for the Sam Goldwyn film, A Prayer For The Dying starring Mickey Rourke, Bob Hoskins and Liam Neeson (1987).

For GBL Productions Martin produced A Night In November, starring Patrick Kielty at the Grand Opera House, Belfast, Olympia Theatre, Dublin and The Trafalgar Theatre, London.  In the same year he produced The Interrogation Of Ambrose Fogarty for the Grand Opera House and a Northern Irish tour.  In 2009 he produced Lay Up Your Ends – a play he co-wrote with Charabanc Theatre Co. - along with the revival of his 2008 production of Marie Jones’ Women On The Verge Of HRT all at the Grand Opera House. Following the huge success of Dancing Shoes-The George Best

Last Year Green Shoot Productions premiered Martin’s play, Chronicles of Long Kesh in Belfast before going on to become one of the big hits of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, winning Best Ensemble produciton at the Stage Awards, followed by a highly successful run at The tricycle Theatre, London, the company are now looking forward to a world tour taking in Ireland, the UK, Australia and the USA in 2011.

This year Green Shoot Productions brought Martin’s adaptation of a Sam Thompson play Over The Bridge to the Waterfront Studio, Belfast.

Martin was recently awarded the Ulster Tatler Arts Person Of The Year Award and is currently writing a new play for Green Shoot Productions.

JJGilmour - Music & Lyrics                                                                                                                  

Internationally acclaimed Scottish singer-songwriter JJ Gilmour made his recording debut in 1989 with The Silencers, one of Scotland's top rated bands who enjoyed huge success in Europe, especially in France. As a natural vocalist (in his youth, he came very close to a career in classical music as a tenor) JJ joined the band as a backing vocalist following five years of constant gigging in Canada. By the time of the fourth Silencers album, Seconds of Pleasure, JJ had progressed seamlessly to lead vocalist.

Seven action-packed years of gigging and recording ensued. The Silencers remained one of the biggest rock acts in France, enjoying even greater success across the Channel than in their native UK. They had two gold albums, sold over half a million records for BMG/RCA, headlined every major French rock festival and were regulars on hit TV shows.

After seven years of hectic touring Europe with the band JJ decided to leave and set out on his solo career.

Following a period of prolific solo song-writing during which he renewed his French connection by signing in early 2001 for a Paris-based record label, funded by the German Edel Music Group. JJ went out to New York to record his critically acclaimed debut solo album Sunnyside P.A.L. produced by Dan Wise (Joan Osborne) and mixed by Michael Brauer (Coldplay). Inspired by the memory of a childhood friend Paul Anthony Lennon, Sunnyside P.A.L. was released in 2002 and was widely acclaimed by his peers as a classic debut album and also set the catalyst to establishing his now fiercely loyal fan base. In between the release of his first solo album and the long awaited equally successful second album The Boy Who Didn't Fall (released in 2009) his desire to write a musical started to take shape at his home in Jersey in the form of Dancing Shoes where he sowed the early creative musical seeds.

After an impromptu meet with Pat Gribben, JJ and Pat joined forces to write the score for a musical dedicated to the memory of George Best, teaming up with great Irish playwrights Marie Jones and Martin Lynch.

The man, the music and the magic that is JJ Gilmour can be found at:

www.jjgilmour.com

Pat Gribben - Music & Lyrics                                                                                                                

Pat Gribben is a songwriter/ guitarist from Belfast. His first break-through in the music scene was with the Belfast band, StarJets who were signed to Sony Records in the late 70’s. After this Pat formed The Adventures with his wife Eileen and ex- StarJet Terry Sharpe. The band were signed to Chrysalis Records by music mogul Simon Fuller (Simon later took on The Adventures as his first band ever as a manager).

The Adventures had reasonable success with Chrysalis and their debut album Theodore and Friends had  most of the songs written by Pat. Simon Fuller subsequently secured The Adventures a recording deal with Warner Brothers Elektra. In 1988 the album The Sea of Love composed by Pat featured their hit single, Broken Land. The band toured extensively with Fleetwood Mac and Tears For Fears and the song Broken Land became the most played song on radio 1 in the year 1988. It was a hit throughout Europe and raised Pat’s profile from a previously unknown level.

 The Adventures made two subsequent albums, the first being Trading Secrets with the Moon on which Pat collaborated with Lloyd Cole and members of The Hothouse Flowers. The bands final album Lions, Tigers and Bears was recorded for Polydor Records in the early 1990’s. Throughout all this time Pat and his wife were living in London but then decided to return home to Belfast as they were trying to raise a young family at the time and London didn’t seem the best place to do this.

On returning home Pat reintegrated into the local music scene and put together a touring band for Irish singer songwriter Brian Kennedy, an old friend. Pat has written and worked a lot with Brian ever since and is in fact playing Glastonbury this very year with him. Pat has also written music for TV shows, most noticeably the entire Best of friends series a BBC children’s television programme.

Whilst working on these various projects the Glasgow singer JJ Gilmour arrived and together they began to assemble the songs for Dancing Shoes, a musical based on the life of George Best. Pat continues to write, record and play music in and around Ireland and hopes to continue doing so for some time to come.

Peter is the recipient of the Rooney Prize for Literature (1977), two Arts Council Bursaries (1982 and 1986) and was writer in residence at the Abbey Theatre in 1980. With his brother Jim he founded the Project Theatre Company and his writing credits there include The Liberty Suit (in collaboration with Gerard Mannix Flynn), which later transferred to the Royal Court Theatre, London, Emigrants and No Entry opened at the Project and also transferred to the Royal Court and the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), respectively.

Among his directorial credits are A Child’s Christmas in Wales at the Abbey Theatre, The Plough and the Stars for Second Age Theatre Company, Brighton Beach Memoirs and Children of Eve at Andrews Lane Theatre, The Risen People at the Gaiety Theatre, Hatchet at the Olympia Theatre, The Kips, The Digs, The Village at Project Arts Centre, the world premiere of I Keano at the Olympia Theatre, The Nativity: What the Donkey Saw at the Mill Theatre, and most recently the world premiere of The Shawshank Redemption at The Gaiety Theatre Dublin and The Wyndhams Theatre London.

He also directed the world premiere of Somewhere Over the Balcony for Charabanc Theatre Company at the Drill Hall, London and for the same company directed The Blind Fiddler by Marie Jones and The Stick Wife by Dara Cloud. Other directorial credits include the American premiere of his play Diary of a Hunger Strike at the Los Angeles Theatre Centre, Shades of the Jelly Woman at the Irish Arts Centre, New York, Off-Broadway the premiere of his play Mother of All the Behans with Rosaleen Linehan and at the Live Oak Theatre in Austin, the regional premiere of Brian Friel’s Translations and Arthur Miller’s The Crucible.

His film credits include the award winning short The Breakfast (winner of the Prix Arte Europe at the Brest Festival, 1998 and a Canadian Rocky at Banff, 1999) and the feature Borstal Boy, released in 2000.

His publishing credits include two books based on his family, 44: A Dublin Memoir (nominated for an Irish Times Literary Award in 2000) and Forty-Seven Roses. His first novel Big Fat Love was published in October of 2003.

 
 Mark Dougherty - Music Supervisor                                                                                                


Mark Dougherty is an experienced composer, arranger and Musical Director who is based in London and Belfast. He was Musical Director for Riverdance for five years from 2000 touring all over Europe and Asia and seeing world premieres in Italy, Spain, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan and China, where the show played in The Great Hall of the People in the presence of the Irish President.

His original works include Promised Land a new opera, ( 8 opera singers, 16-piece band, large chorus) commissioned by the Canterbury Festival and staged in the Marlowe Theatre in October 2006 and Kentish Tales and Castle Rackrent, both commissioned by The Really Promising Company. BBC commissions include...Dance for the Camera, Traditional Sounds, and The Homecoming - all featuring a variety of Irish and Scottish traditional instruments. Other works include Jazz Suites, TV themes and four full-scale musicals, including Rebellion, which traced the motivation behind Henry Joy McCracken leading The United irishmen during the 1798 uprising in Ireland.
He conducted the cast and orchestra of Les Miserables in a series of sell-out concerts across the UK, and the Ulster Orchestra in several of his own works including With One Voice a seventy minute piece which featured a choir of one thousand.