Mc Pherson Rides High

Conor Mc Pherson, the 26-year-old playwright close to this writer's heart since he burst on an unsuspecting public in UCD Dramsoc, is caught in a whirl-wind of success. His play, The Weir, which revolves around a series of ghost stories told in a rural bar, is running at the Royal Court in London, and is sold out until it comes down on August 9th. The run may be extended, and the show may well transfer to the Royal Court's larger space. This is on foot of stunning reviews; The Guardian's esteemed Michael Billington sounds like he could barely find his way home after- wards: "No praise, in fact, is too high for a play full of the echoing sadness of disap- pointed lives. . . " Mc Pherson's This Lime Tree Bower which went up two years ago in the Dublin Theatre Festival Fringe (it didn't make the main festival) has just been recorded by Radio Four, for transmission on ???????????????. The film, I Went Down, which he scripted for Treasure Films, was a hit at Cannes and opens here in the Autumn; another script is being filmed by Hand Made Films, and Mc Pherson is just back from the US, where he was researching a script set in the badlands of the southern states.