Mr. Killian Donnelly:

It would probably be if I was employed by a British producer in a production that was coming to Ireland, as happened three or four years ago when I was playing the role of Jean Valjean in Les Misérables. It was a UK and Ireland tour. That was the first time I got to perform at home in a professional show. It sold out within a week or two, although, granted, it was Les Misérables. I was 20 minutes from my house and could cycle to work. Things like that were unheard of when I was growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, as everyone has discussed.

I am a product of amateur drama, which Mr. Foley and Mr. Rob Donnelly spoke about. That is where I got my training because I did not have third level education available to me. I did what many people do - I gave it a go. I said goodbye to my family, got on a flight and moved to London in 2006. In 2018 I got to come back to do a musical in Ireland for six weeks at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre. I was meant to go back with a production of The Phantom of the Operabut Covid stopped all that.

As regards new work, Mr. Roche mentioned Michael Collins: A Musical Drama. I played Michael Collins in that show many years ago. It had a lot of word of mouth and was going really well. It started in the Theatre Royal Waterford and went to the Olympia Theatre but then it just stopped and that was because amateur and semi-professional performers were employed on it and helping it go but there was just no funding. Bryan Flynn, who wrote the musical, has since departed. He took out a second mortgage to keep the production going, just to see if it would have legs. With proper funding, public relations and word of mouth, there would be so much more behind all these musicals. As Mr. Foley stated, AIMS has 15,000 members. There is a lot of talent out there; they just need to be facilitated and know where to go.