A banana, tape recorder and a bomb...

A Cork actor who starred in the Irish TV series ‘Love/Hate’ is the leading man in a smash hit play coming to East Cork next week.

Patrick McCabe's play 'Country and Irish' is coming to The Mall Arts Centre next Tuesday 2 May and stars Youghal's own son Peter Gowen as the deluded Donie Burris, a man with a banana, a tape recorder, and a bomb.

Donie has a whole heap of troubles facing him, with his girlfriend, her son, Albanian gangsters, the Longford Mafia, and a very overbearing mammy all to worry about.

To get them off his back, Donie imagines himself as the star of his own gangster movie and is determined no to go down without a fight. A hilarious but savage portrait of a man at the end of his rope, ‘Country and Irish’ is described as a wild joyride that pays homage to film noir, Samuel Beckett, and even the Teletubbies.

Directed by Conor Hanratty, McCabe’s triumphant theatrical display has been picking up rave reviews and great enthusiastic audience response wherever it is performed.