“Ireland simply had no option other than neutrality during World War Two. The War of Independence was too recent, and siding with Britain would probably have led to an IRA uprising, and/or a mutiny within the army, and/or the return of British troops, meaning an end to Irish sovereignty.

“Neutrality was necessary. It was essential. But there’s no point in dressing it up as a lofty principle. What sort of principle is it anyway? Can we really be loftily even-handed in our stance on Kosovo or Darfur? Or Iraq?  But the moral debate is rendered irrelevant by the fact that we aren’t neutral, not really, and seldom have been. Do US army planes really need to refuel in Shannon? That might have made sense in the days of Alcock and Brown, but these days a military jet could surely go that extra distance, and land in some non-neutral NATO member-state? So why is America causing us all this unnecessary embarrassment? Maybe they’re just waiting for an Irish government to bring it up…”

“The relationship between the two countries is interesting because it’s so multilayered, and constantly morphing, and our histories are too intertwined for there to be any major differences, but still there are differences, one of which is that we know them a little better than they know us, not because we’re cleverer, but because that’s the nature of the underdog.”

So is writing a historical comedy about taking an opportunity to address topics that are still sensitive in Irish society as much as setting out to make people laugh? “Yes, it is a chance to make political points, and obviously that’s a thing I have a fondness for doing, but it was never really the primary impulse. First and foremost, I wanted to set the play in a time and a place that appealed to me, and Myles’s Dublin has always exerted a strong pull. But as soon as you’ve started recreating another time, there is an irresistible urge to use it as a lens through which to view the present. No point in resisting that urge.”

Improbable Frequency swept Ireland’s annual theatre awards in January – was Arthur at all surprised by the success, especially considering the fact that Irish musical theatre is not renowned in the same way as other forms of theatre? “As part of the writing process, Lynne Parker, our director (and artistic director of Rough Magic) would get myself and Bell Helicopter, a cast of actors, and a musical director, and put us together for a week to rehearse whatever songs had been written so far, and properly weld the lyrics to the music, and at the end of that week, we’d perform the work to a small, invited audience. As well as being a huge help in getting the thing finished, it also gave us some idea of how an audience might react. And audiences reacted extremely well to those early showings, so I did have some notion we might have a hit on our hands!

“All I can say, really, is that I set out to write the sort of play I’d love to see. That’s all you can ever do. I play Schroedinger myself and otherwise there’s an amazing cast: Louis Lovett plays Tristram, Sarah Jane Drummey plays Philomena, Carrie Crowley is Agent Green, Darragh Kelly is Myles, and Nick Grennell is Betjeman. So I’m hoping audiences will laugh their heads off, tap their feet to the tunes, and tell their friends what a great night they had.”

Improbable Frequencies runs at the Cork Opera House from Tuesday, November 13 until Saturday, November 17.

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