The opening night of To Kill a Dead Man at Project in Dublin's Temple Bar was so packed with broadcasting types it seemed like an RTÉ school tour.
Fair City producer Niall Matthews was there, as was one of the writers of the soap, Brigid deCourcy. From Rattlebag came Peter Cauley and Judy Malone and from the Late Late Show, senior researcher Bill Malone.
Unlike your average school tour crowd, the RTÉ lot seemed more than happy to be there (there were no reports of spilled Tip Tops or thrown Tayto's anyway), but then they were celebrating one of their own, Kevin McGee, a frequent writing contributor to Fair City, and the writer of To Kill a Dead Man.
"I'm enjoying it," said Matthews, "It's typically gothic, that manifests itself in the script fairly quickly, but then Kevin is typically gothic."
A description McGee seems happy enough with. "The play is a collision of film noir and gothic horror or, as it has been described, Abbott and Costello meets Nietzsche."
To Kill a Dead Man is McGee's first play at Project - "I've only passed here wide-eyed before" - and it's definitely a step up, he says. "There's hardly a pothole in Munster where I haven't put on a production that no-one came to."
This production has also given given him an opportunity to work with Inis Theatre Company, founded just two years ago by Iseult Golden and Carmel Stephens the stars of McGee's play.
For director David Horan, it's his third collaboration with Golden and Stephens, having directed Inis Theatre's first two plays, The World's Wife and Lady Susan. "It's been great working with Inis. I had seen Carmel in a Midsummer Night's Dream, and that convinced me to get involved, and this play has just been wonderful. At this stage my job is done, now I can just sit back and watch the performance grow on it's own."
Enid Reid-Whyte, drama director of the Arts Council, and actor Malachy Whyte attended as did Niall Ó Sioradáin and Maeve McGrath, who are involved in a series of anti-war play readings in the Crypt Arts Centre in Dublin Castle.
"Tonight was great," says Ó Sioradáin. "Very funny and clever. I've just been to the dentist, so it was definitely more enjoyable."