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John Crowley seems to move effortlessly from screen to stage on a huge range of projects. His latest film stars Michael Caine as a grumpy, old magician, but he is already looking forward to another raft of work, including supermarket staff on strike and a dog with a dark secret

CORK NATIVE JOHN Crowley is a director who moves with as much ease between genres as he does between working for cinema and theatre. Intimations of mortality loom over his affecting, beautifully acted new film Is Anybody There?, which is set in a retirement home and stars Michael Caine. Mortality might well recur as an element in the new Martin McDonagh play, A Behanding in Spokane,which Crowley is preparing to direct in New York.