OVERVIEW

• Playwright

  Hugh Quinn 

• Setting

  "A small street in the Falls Road district of Belfast" (programme), "as the late troubles in Ireland are dying away" (published script).

• Synopsis

  A short play in which a rent agent, escorted by an armed sergeant, is doing his round of Belfast's Falls Road streets after some civil disturbances. While the sergeant is talking to Ikey, a Jewish pedlar, about troubled times, and being deliberately distracted by tough local women, the rent man is robbed of his book and money. It emerges that the money is to be redistributed to locals, while the book is to show who has been paying rent, as the play takes place at the time of a rent strike.

• Play Type

  Plays General
  

  Number Of Acts

  One Act

Cast size

• Male

  3

• Female

  2

• Total

  5

Original Production

• Date of First Production

  06 December 1937

• Producer

  Produced by Belfast Repertory Theatre Company

• Original Venue

  Gaiety Theatre
  

Source Of Information

Information for this entry has come from the company programme for the premiere production, and from the published play script.