A Night in November

Synopsis

Northern Irish play written in 1995. A Night in November, is a hard and humorous look at the Protestant tradition in Northern Ireland. Kenneth McCallister is a dole clerk who tolerates his marriage, his in-laws and Ulster until, one fateful night in November, as the Republic of Ireland qualifies against Northern Ireland for the World Cup, he finds himself watching not the match, but the sectarian hatred of the crowd. A Night in November follows Kenneth on his rebellious journey as he travels to New York to join the supporters of the Republic's soccer team. Not a play about football but about a man who suddenly realises that he can have a hand in his own destiny.

Our Review:

12 February 2003

A Night in November, first shown in 1994 in Belfast before a London and an off-Broadway transfer, is as admirable a piece of work as Marie Jones' subsequent smash, Stones in His Pockets.

To say it's a one-man show is immediately to diminish it because, like Stones, where two men create a myriad of personalities, so here the stage is peopled with extraordinary individuals in extraordinary circumstances. There are venomous Protestant football hooligans in a Belfast stadium, Irish drunkards on a transatlantic flight - a kind of hell if ever there was one - and husbands and wives battling for the survival of the self in a confining suburbia.

Downtrodden Protestant dole clerk Kenneth McCallister leads a humdrum life full of prejudice against his Catholic co-patriots, openly exulting against "Fenian" social security applicants, and enjoying a few cultural bonuses for being on the right (British) side. But Kenny's...

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