Chicken Waste Dispute At 'Further Stage'

Politicians will be mingling with the Lough Neagh chicken waste incinerator protest group at tonight's opening of Stormont, a new comedy play.

Playwright Martin Lynch and GBL Productions are welcoming the attendance of Danny Moore and Communities Against the Lough Neagh Incinerator group to the event at Newtownabbey's Theatre at The Mill.

"It's a case of life imitating art as the central plot of the new play is based on a protest against a Chicken Incinerator to be located on the shores of Lough Neagh," writer Sean Crummey said.

Sean Crummey started writing the play over a year ago and had no idea that during rehearsals Minister Poots would announce plans to build a Chicken Waste Incinerator.

"The timing couldn't be better for us." Martin Lynch who is producing the play said: "When I heard that Minister Poots announced the incinerator plans I thought that he was trying to steal our thunder.

"Was he looking at our scripts? We love the fact that this play is dealing with issues affecting people right now.

"I'm delighted that Danny and the Communities Against the Lough Neagh Incinerator group are coming to see the show but I hope they don't take the same action as the characters in our play and kidnap Gerry Kelly or Michael McGimpsey," he laughed.

The play is from the producers who brought Dancing Shoes - The George Best Story to Belfast and is set at election time for the Stormont Assembly.

Political parties go into overdrive to win votes. The corridors at Stormont become a hive of activity as various news networks set up to catch interviews with the leading politicians.

Sinn Fein’' Gerry Kelly and Michael McGimpsey of the Ulster Unionist party are about to conduct a phone interview with Talkback.

Meanwhile, a militant group of environmentalists have decided that the election is too good an opportunity to miss.

Exploiting the media presence, they make bold plans to take their case to the heart of Government.

The comedy, written by and starring BBC TV's Folks On The Hill funny man, Sean Crummey, also stars Marty Maguire fresh from his hugely successful performance in the Grand Opera House as Matt Busby in Dancing Shoes - The George Best Story along with Paul Boyd who recently appeared in the Lyric Theatre production of the Miser and Kathy Kiera Clarke Irish Film and TV Awards nominated Best Actress for Paul Greengrass' Bloody Sunday.

Bernard Clarkson, Manager of Theatre at The Mill, said: "We are delighted to be launching the new autumn theatre programme for Theatre at The Mill with this riotous new comedy and have no doubt it will contain the same high quality and popularity of Martin Lynch's previous theatre productions.

See: www.theatreatthemill.com

(BMcC/KMcA)