Faith Healer

Faith Healer is running at the Lyric Theatre from Saturday 10 October to Saturday 14 November, part of the venue's 75th anniversary season. It's Brian Friel's play, and this revival brings it back to Belfast with three Northern Irish actors in the roles.

Conleth Hill takes the lead as Frank Hardy, a travelling healer who works his way through the remote villages of Wales and Scotland before returning to Ireland. He's part showman, part shaman, offering miracle cures with a gift that's as astonishing as it is dangerously unreliable. The play follows Frank, his wife Grace and his manager Teddy as they recount their life on the road, but their stories don't always line up. They give competing versions of the same events, and that's where the play lives: in the gaps between their accounts, in a poetic look at a charismatic conman and the consequences of his creative storytelling.

It's a well-travelled piece of writing. First staged on Broadway in 1979, it's since played to audiences all over the world. The Guardian called it one of the greatest plays of the twentieth century, and The New York Times described it as 'a quietly devastating study of pain recollected'. This production is directed by Emma Jordan, with Conleth Hill as Frank, Lisa Dwyer Hogg as Grace and Chris the McCurry as Teddy.

Press night was Wednesday 14 October, so the run is well under way. Performances are at 14:30 and 19:30, and it's recommended for ages 14 and over. Tickets range from £16 to £40, and the show runs on the Lyric's Main Stage at 55 Ridgeway Street, Belfast BT9 5FB, through to Saturday 14 November.