Rough Magic

Rough Magic presents

Improbable Frequency

Dublin, 1941: while war rages across Europe, Dublin revels in its prized neutrality as its theatres and bars remain open for business. A hotbed of intellectual and cultural high living, the city is home to an excitable rabble of exiled intellectuals, British spies and Nazi sympathisers.
When a series of coded messages transmitted in the form of songs on a radio programme draw the attention of MI5, a young code breaker is sent to investigate. His enquiries lead him into a series of improbable situations and encounters with the likes of John Bejteman, suspected of being a British spy, Erwin Schrödinger, who is taking advantage of the intellectual (and sexual!) freedom Dublin has to offer, and the surrealist Irish Times satirist Myles na gCopaleen.
 
Inspired by real events, Improbable Frequency brings these three historical figures together as elements in a surreal series of absurd plots to overthrow the British, undermine the Nationalists and subvert the forces of nature.

 “PLENTY OF FUN IN THIS MADCAP MUSICAL CAPER, WITH A DAZZLING RHYMED BOOK AND LYRICS AND JAUNTY MUSIC HALL TUNES... A BIT LIKE EARLY STOPPARD CROSSED WITH A GILBERT AND SULLIVAN OPERETTA!”

Charles Isherwood, The New York Times

Production Credits

Written by Arthur Riordan and Bell Helicopter

Director: Lynne Parker

Set Designer: Alan Farquharson

Costume Designer: Kathy Strachan

Lighting Designer: Sinead Mckenna