Pitlochry Festival Theatre is delighted to announce the first production by a Scottish theatre of The Weir. Conor McPherson’s multi award-winning Irish drama is directed by PFT regular Richard Baron, who was responsible for last season’s acclaimed production of Man And Superman. Richard commented: “I’m very much enjoying directing a play which, with a combination of wit and compassion, creates its own distinctive theatrical poetry and celebrates with its audience the healing potential of storytelling.”

Set in a remote, rural part of North West Ireland, the small talk in Brendan’s bar – of tractors, the weather and women – is disturbed by the arrival of Valerie, a young Dubliner who has just moved into the area.  Valerie’s presence acts as a catalyst for an evening of supernatural tales, as the bar’s lonely bachelors compete for the attractive newcomer’s attention with a string of increasingly dark and disturbing stories. But when Valerie announces that she too is haunted, none of them can know that the tables are about to be turned with a story that chills them to the bone . . .

“There can be little doubt that The Weir is one of the most important plays to be seen on the British stage in the last ten years” comments John Durnin, Artistic Director of Pitlochry Festival Theatre. “When it was first seen in 1997, this quiet, beautifully observed but utterly hypnotic series of tales created a huge stir – and rightly so. For in The Weir, Conor McPherson created an entirely new kind of play, one that tells the story of a country and a people not as history, but as a haunting. Pure genius.”

First night is on Wednesday, 28th July 2004 at 8pm.