Growing up in Belfast during the 1970s, when the Troubles were at their height, was a traumatic time for Ruairi Conaghan. Especially when his uncle, a judge, was assassinated on his doorstep by gunmen. By the time of the 1984 Brighton bombing, when a device exploded in the hotel which the then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was staying in during the Conservative Party conference, Conaghan was all set on escaping for an actor’s life in London. When he is asked to play the man responsible for that bombing in a brand-new play which, unlike the victims of violence, might have another life, the experience of meeting him opens up a long-buried wound for Conaghan.

What follows in Patrick O’Kane’s production is part memoir, part exorcism, as Conaghan squares up to his own past and a brush with near death in a fearless performance that doesn’t flinch from the damage done. As he comes to terms with old ghosts, his powerful and deeply personal purging reveals a matter of life and death that comes straight from the heart. 

Lies Where It Falls, C alto until 25 August, 2.30pm.