The multi-talented Aaron Monaghan returns to Druid’s Mick Lally Theatre next month, this time in the role of director, with Cavan’s Livin’ Dred Theatre, the company of which he’s Artistic Director.

Aaron, who has previously appeared with Druid in several of its productions of Joh Millington Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World, is at the helm in a staging a Livin’ Dred pledges will crackle “with wit, heroism, humour, and a touch of the absurd”.

To celebrate Livin’ Dred’s 21st anniversary, Aaron is directing fine cast in a play that teems with lyrical language, biting satire and sensational characters, as worlds and desires collide.

The story of shy, poetic Christy Mahon who stumbles into a remote rural pub, claiming to have killed his father, and sets off a frenzy of fascination that turns the Mayo countryside upside down, is well-known to theatre-goers at home and abroad.

Christy’s actions transform him into an unlikely hero as he captures the affections of the pub owner’s daughter, Pegeen Mike, despite the fact that she’ s already engaged.

But while they manoeuvre their way through their various difficulties, a mysterious figure arrives, casting Christy’s extraordinary and ever-growing story into doubt, until the lines between truth and fantasy become hilariously blurred.

Humour notwithstanding, Aaron focuses on the tragic love story in a play that so outraged people when it was first staged in 1907, that it led to riots in the Abbey.

The 11-strong cast includes Druid familiars Garret Lombard as Old Mahon and John Olohan as Michael James, as well as Galway’s Seán T Ó Meallaigh as Jimmy Farrell.

The other actors are Gerard Byrne; Colin Campbell, Amelia Crowley (Widow Quinn), Naoise Dunbar (Christy) Ciara Ivie, Éilish McLaughlin (Peigín MIke), Meadhbh Maxwell and Caitríona Williams.

Most of Aaron’s own stage work has been with Druid and the Abbey Theatre – with Druid he has appeared in The Cripple Of Inishmaan and Richard III as well as in Playboy.

With Livin’ Dred, he has also directed Tarry Flynn, Danti-Dan and Trad, while with Druid, he took on Billy Roche’s Cavalcaders, and he has also directed tours of the award-winning Charlie’s A Clepto and Minefield by Clare Monnelly, Walking The Road by Dermot Bolger, and From All Sides and Slice The Thief by Lee Coffey.

This production comes to Galway having played in Cavan’s Ramor Theatre, Dún Laoghaire’s Pavilion, Louth’s Droichead Arts Centre, and the Backstage in Longford. It will be in Druid’s Mick Lally Theatre on Friday and Saturday, February 14 and 15, at 8pm nightly with tickets at €20-€22 from the Druid Box Office, by phone on 091 568660 or online at www.druid.ie.