Peadar de Burca is an Irish actor, playwright and comedian. He was originally from Galway City, County Galway and has gained recognition for his work in the entertainment industry.
De Burca first gained prominence as a theatre director, before transitioning to writing and performing in comedy shows that tour throughout Ireland. His comedic style and writing have been noted for their American influences, although he maintains a distinct Irish perspective.
De Burca has made appearances on television and radio, often taking an antagonistic approach. In one incident, the Irish broadcaster RTÉ received complaints after he referred to the Irish Prime Minister as 'Ireland's answer to Shrek'. Additionally, during a performance of his show "Why Men Cheat," De Burca was punched by a female audience member. The show is based on real stories of infidelity, and there was confusion over whether De Burca himself had cheated or not.
Adaptations of films
De Burca has produced a number of stage adaptations of popular films. In 2002, he founded MorWax Productions and launched the company with a successful stage adaptation of Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs".
The popularity of the production led to two additional adaptations of Tarantino's scripts, "Pulp Fiction" and "True Romance", which also enjoyed sell-out runs. These adaptations were known for their youthful casts and unique interpretations that differed from the original film productions.
De Burca declined offers to tour the "Tarantino" shows outside of Galway, where they were initially performed, instead focusing on producing other film adaptations. These included adaptations of "When Harry Met Sally...", "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and a version of "Psycho" produced by MorWax Productions but directed by Frances O'Rourke.
Irish Theatre
Parallel to adapting film works for stage, De Burca directed a string of classical Irish stage shows, keeping in line with the MorWax philosophy of offering theatre for everyone. Three initial sell-out hits included Tom Murphy's Conversations on a Homecoming, John B. Keane's The Field and O'Casey's The Plough and the Stars. The latter is a notoriously difficult show to produce and had never been staged in Galway. It is always seen as a triumph for MorWax that the show sold out its week-long run at the Town Hall Theatre main stage, despite the company being non-funded and a hostile reaction from local press.
Shakespearian Tragedies
Although an artistic city, Galway lacks the population to sustain longer theatrical runs and has a limited artistic programme. While companies visited with touring Shakespearian production, there was not yet a theatre company producing Shakespeare in Galway.
In 2004, De Burca mounted a successful period version of Macbeth. The thirty strong cast was supplemented by ten musicians and was remembered for its sword-fights and a strong performance from Emma Daly as Lady Macbeth. Buoyed by this success, De Burca tackled Hamlet the following year. In this production, ten actors played all the parts in a production that included audience participation, a ladder from the stage to the audience balcony and a Player's scene entrance where the actors cycled bikes among the audience. The production had no set, only two antique chests that were manipulated by the cast for whatever effect they desired. Playwright and novelist, John Arden assisted with the production in what many thought was MorWax's finest hour.
Original Scripts
De Burca's foray into writing did not begin promisingly. His only writing credit had been a bilingual show during the 1993 Galway Arts Festival, Poitin Rock until his love of graphic novels pushed him to write an original stage version of Batman in 2005. The show was a highly ambitious production, staged in the cavernous Black Box Theatre Galway. With only six actors playing over twenty parts, martial arts, live music, puppets, singing and a three-level set, the show was a critical and commercial flop causing one blogger to write the headline, "Peadar De Burca stole eighty minutes of my life!". Many believe that the fall-out from this show forced De Burca in a new direction towards comedy.