CENTRE Stage presents Bold Girls, a searing, darkly funny portrait of women’s lives during the Troubles, which is returning to the Belfast stage for the first time in 36 years.
Written by Rona Munro, this landmark revival runs from 9–13 June at the Naughton Studio, Lyric Theatre, and is directed by Michael Quinn. As the first production of the play by a Northern Irish company, it brings renewed focus to its enduring relevance – particularly its powerful portrayal of voices historically pushed to the margins.
This revival marks the 40th anniversary of Centre Stage and connects to a broader tradition of theatre-making in the North championing local voices and stories.
Set in West Belfast in the early 1990s, three women – Marie (Caroline Curran), Cassie (Hannah Carnegie), and Nora (Mairead McKinley) hold together the fabric of everyday life as violence and uncertainty unfold beyond their front door. Their absent men are variously idolised, loathed, or mourned. It is left to the women to endure, sustaining family and community through resilience, humour, and sheer force of will. When quiet young stranger Deirdre (Annie McIlwaine) arrives unexpectedly, the fragile balance begins to shift, and long-suppressed truths rise to the surface.
Through sharp dialogue and biting Belfast-black humour, Munro captures the complexity of relationships forged under pressure – where solidarity and strain coexist, and where survival often depends on what is left unsaid. Though the violence of the period remains largely offstage, its presence is constant, turning the home into a pressure cooker always threatening to boil over.
Bold Girls won Munro the Evening Standard Most Promising Playwright Award and the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. First staged in 1991, it emerged at a time when depictions of the Troubles were largely dominated by male perspectives. Placing working-class women firmly at its centre, it explores friendship, loyalty, and the uncomfortable truths that lie beneath everyday survival.
Munro wrote the play after extensive research visits to Belfast, and its authenticity reflects a deep engagement with the lived experiences of women during the Troubles. The work sits alongside that of Belfast playwrights such as Christina Reid and Anne Devlin, who similarly shifted Northern Irish theatre’s focus toward domestic spaces and female perspectives. Roma Tomelty, co-founder of Centre Stage, who had a long association with the Lyric Theatre, which celebrates 75 years of theatre making this year, played a significant role in shaping that landscape, fostering work rooted in community and lived experience.
Director of Bold Girls, Michael Quinn said: “While rooted in a specific time and place, Bold Girls continues to resonate far beyond its setting. Its exploration of how individuals navigate conflict within the hidden, private sphere of the home remains urgently relevant in contemporary discussions about memory, voice and representation. What makes Bold Girls extraordinary is its refusal to foreground the off-stage conflict. Instead, it asks what such hostilities does to people – specifically to women who are left to carry on, to cope, and to survive. It’s about endurance, but also about the cost of that endurance.”
Hannah Carnegie, Centre Stage General Manager, who is also playing Cassie, added: “We are honoured to bring Bold Girls to the Lyric Theatre. It marks three major milestones – the return of the play to Belfast after 36 years; performing it at the Lyric during its 75th anniversary year – on whose stages my mum Roma Tomelty often performed; and the 40th anniversary of Centre Stage. What’s so compelling about the play is how these women protect themselves and each other through stories about love and loyalty even when those stories don’t always hold true. The play asks what happens when you can no longer avoid the truth.”
Bold Girls will run in the Naughton Studio, Lyric Theatre 9–13 June. Suitable for audiences 15+. For ticket details visit https://lyrictheatre.co.uk/whats-on/bold-girls. Visit Centre Stage on www.centrestageni.org and follow on X: @CentreStageNI, Facebook: centrestageco and Instagram: @centrestageni.
