GROUP! A note from the composer

“Musicals aren’t written. They are re-written!”

Group! started life in 2002 when I asked some close friends to come together and read a piece of musical theatre I wanted to write. I was a kid and had no idea what it would be about, I just knew I wanted to be a writer of musicals and opera! Since one of those friends had access to seven free bar stools, and the reading was in the old Group Theatre, I set upon the idea of group therapy and chairs. That whirlwind of youth - with a little help from all our parents - gave way the following year to a full production in the Lyric Theatre, ahead of an Edinburgh Fringe run.

That little piece started my career and has had a life of its own in London, New York and other brilliant places, largely under the title Have A Nice Life – a title I hated. Back then, the Belfast accent was linked to things other than comedy, so producers came on board, then a co-writer, and before I knew it, they had made it anything but Belfast. So I shelved it. But the world has changed, and now our Belfast voice is proudly heard all over the world of entertainment. I wanted to make Group! Belfast again and bring it back to where it came from: here.

The piece is an anarchic comedy, but it’s really about people who want to make themselves better. They come back, again and again. They try. And that’s really the journey of an artist too. They try, again and again until they get it right - if they ever do. Group! has had several drafts, and this one is the last. I honestly think there are more songs not in the show than in it! Songs like I Feel Your Pain and Diddly Squat are now on a shelf and it was the great Stephen Sondheim himself who asked that If I Could Do It All Again be reinstated (it was cut!). All those songs, and the ones you’ll hear tonight, are meant to honour the great American Songbook – something I adore. Each character has their own sound, whether it’s 40’s swing or Disney, vaudeville or Kander and Ebb, the songs are like a parody catalogue of style – a love letter to the form of musical theatre. And in a way, those seven chairs are all those songs need. Oh, and a brilliant accent.

Conor Mitchell,

Artistic Director