Puckoon by Spike Milligan
4 Extra Debut. An Irish town falls victim to bureaucratic stupidity when divided by a new border. Stars Ed Byrne and Barry Cryer. From 2019.
A madcap satire on the division of Ireland, by the godfather of British comedy, Spike Milligan.
In 1924, the Boundary Commission is tasked with creating the new official division between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic.
Through incompetence, dereliction of duty and sheer perversity, the border ends up running through the middle of the small town of Puckoon.
Houses are divided from outhouses, husbands separated from wives, bars are cut off from their patrons, churches sundered from graveyards. And in the middle of it all is poor Dan Milligan, our feckless protagonist (played by Ed Byrne), who is taunted and manipulated by everyone to try and make some sense of this mess.
The division of the church from its cemetery makes it difficult for the Irish residents to bury their dead.
The corpse of Dan Doonan is taken to a photographer to get his picture taken, as part of the formalities of getting his passport renewed.
Starring:
Ed Byrne
Barry Cryer
Pauline McLynn
Kate Harbour
Jane Milligan
Wilf Scolding
David Shaw-Parker
Colm Gleeson
Tom Alexander
Adapted by Ian Billings
Director: Dirk Maggs
Producer: David Morley
A Perfectly Normal production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in December 2019.
Last on
Broadcasts
Sat 28 Dec 201914:30BBC Radio 4- Sat 25 Nov 202315:00BBC Radio 4
- Wed 3 Dec 202515:00BBC Radio 4 Extra
- Wed 3 Dec 202521:00BBC Radio 4 Extra
- Thu 4 Dec 202505:00BBC Radio 4 Extra
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