The Dundonald Liberation Army

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The ambition is huge and if Stormont isn’t functioning so cannot be stormed at the moment, there’s always the Lisburn and Castlereagh Council chamber. Actors Matthew McIhinney and Matt Forsythe return to the roles they originated in 2019's hit Dog DLA Afternoon – in which the DLA's attempt to stage a bank heist went farcically wrong – and the online 2020 Christmas-themed sequel Jingle All The DLA, which found Davy (McElhinney) and Horse (Forsythe) connecting via Zoom to share their experiences of the Covid pandemic. He’s the top man or miscreant of the DLA and represents a portmanteau of all sorts of illustrious figures. Wasn’t there one loyalist paramilitary known as the Mexican?” Laughter breaks out. Of course, and this is the interesting bit, Davy the former terrorist – sorry freedom fighter – wants real power so makes the transition to mainstream politics. Horse, the passionate Dundonaldian, isn’t happy in the end. Gerard has also worked as a presenter for CBBC on Ukool for 5 years and also worked as guest presenter on Fully Booked. Gerard has numerous panto and small screen credits and he is the founder of Pintsized Productions and Artistic Producer at Sodabread Theatre.

And then when you go and see these shows and you see a room full of people belly laughing at your jokes, it's a great feeling.

A laughing matter

However, it seems that the ongoing read-through and rehearsal process for the play is still an essential part of the staging process, as Large explains. I've moved round different areas but I haven't managed to get out yet. But I haven't had any problems – everyone sees it for what it is and no-one is taking it too seriously. I take the p*** out of a lot of working class things, but it's all stuff that I have experienced – I used to take my PE kit to school in a plastic carrier bag. So it's sort of an equal opportunity offender in that regard. There is no agenda there other than to rip the p*** out of everyone equally. That's proper satire to me." Large adds: "Martin Lynch said to me that Dog DLA Afternoon, 'reeked of working class Protestantism'. When we were working on Three's A Shroud, he also told me that I was doing something that he'd never seen before – that I was 'bringing young working class Protestant men into the theatre'.

The comedic timing of Matthew McElhinney and Matthew Forsythe did not miss a mark. If you told me the duo had really been friends running about since Davy’s ma gave Horse her Ben Sherman t-shirt, I would have believed you.

The MAC was an excellent choice of venue when staging the show as the humour is quintessentially Northern Irish and there is no better place to take the hand out of ourselves than the heart of Belfast city centre. I haven’t been at a show in a long time where the crowd were as loud and invested in what was going on in front of them - many a ‘yeooo’, cheer and roar of laugher bellowed through the MAC all night and it almost felt like a crowd at a stand-up comedy gig compared to the usual theatre goers. Barry Mellon, a former DLA prisoner, was elected the ‘DIC head’ and he embarked upon a series of press conferences which the Lisburn authorities dismissed as nothing more than just ‘terrorist propaganda’. Lisburn Council adopted a policy of banning the voices of representatives of paramilitary groups during this time but the media found a way around the ban by dubbing Mellon’s voice with that of an actor. Viewers and listeners often heard Mr Mellon’s words spoken by celebrities such as Bill Cosby and Vincent Price. Film credits include: Ups and Downs (BBC); U Looking At Me (Channel 4); Betrayal of trust and Father Father (BBC NI).

Matthew has also had success in television, with appearances in BBC’s The Fall, Come Home, My Mother and Other Strangers, The Woman in White , Line of Duty and recently the BBC’s new crime drama, Blue Lights . He was also cast as a lead in a special film version of The Pardoners Tale. Matthew Forsythe, originally cast as Davy, morphed into the guy with more gurning ability than GCSEs, as he told me later. “I enjoy playing Horse, he may not have the greatest intelligence but is crucial. I’m not sure I enjoy playing comedy more than serious roles – I enjoy both, but Horse is interesting to play," he says.For Stephen, along with that sense of accomplishment will be the memory of three young men who lost their lives in the last few years. In honour of them, he has teamed up with the suicide prevention charity PIPS to offer billboard advertising throughout the promotional campaign for Vote DLA, as well as pledging to make a donation at the end of the run. My younger brother Aaron died in 2019, and then [in 2020, radio presenter] Stephen Clements, who did so much to help me get my stuff out there. The author references the late 1970s political satire Citizen Smith, featuring the great Robert Lindsay as Wolfie, borrowing his moniker from the Irish revolutionary fighter Wolfe Tone. Talking to the Vote DLA gang in an otherwise empty studio space at the Grand Opera House, it’s clear they are having fun with the climactic show. They even put up Vote DLA posters round town in the run-up to the recent council elections, maybe confusing some voters in the process. But although it gained audience applause, I’m not sure the Tina Turner Simply the Best sequence, with beautiful tribute photo and dates of the late great singer, entirely worked.