When the family play, Sleepy Suggy, opens on the new stage at the Theatre Royal on Monday 14th December, it will mark another significant achievement in the theatrical career of writer and director, Liam Meagher, one of a small dynasty of Meagher’s who have added so much to the contemporary history of Waterford.

Liam Meagher wrote and directs this wonderful children’s play, that will be a joy for all ages and each night a child from the audience will be invited up on stage with four actors, to become the star – Sleepy Suggy – a lazy kid who likes to stay in bed and not be part of a journey – an amazing journey – to a lonely lighthouse, a hot-air balloon ride and a duck with a personality problem.

Liam is unique the way for over twenty years he has specialized in childrens and family theatre and he is still under forty, living in Poleberry, married to Mary and has a darling boy, Charlie, who is proudly five and a half years old.

In that time, mostly with Little Red Kettle, he has devised and written over forty half hour collaborations with primary school children, written and directed a considerable list of interactive plays touring to schools in Waterford and beyond. He co-wrote with Ben Hennessy a play that went to Japan in 2000. That year he wrote the play/film All In The Head at The Forum and that wild imaginative play, set a standard still fresh in my memory.

Interviewing him at the Royal, his deep love of theatre as spectacle and fun, spills out of him and his enthusiasm is as infectious as ever. He relishes and revels in the challenge putting his work on a famous stage means to him. Fame rests lightly on him and he is generous in his admiration for young people and the fine cast of Sleepy Suggy. Ray Collins who is in this production will also play the Beadle in the Wexford Opera House production of Oliver! This Christmas [Jamie Murphy will play Fagin].

Liam Meagher radiates excitement for his adventurous brand of theatre and currently has a Little Red Kettle play on a long schools tour, with a most adventurous style of interaction with over twenty children who will play many parts to the delight of their peers.

Early next year Liam will direct Bouncers for Bowler Hat in the Royal with a version specially adapted for Waterford by Pat Daly.