Testimonials
“The Lyric began in the 1950s when an ardently committed couple, Mary and Pearse O’Malley, transformed the back rooms of their house into a space dedicated to plays and players and what their beloved W.B.Yeats called “the painted stage”. Some of my best memories of theatre are located in that first home and in the new playhouse that was eventually built on the banks of the Lagan. So I am all in favour of the present effort to maintain that original vision and strengthen the immunity system that the best live theatre always provides for its community.”
Seamus Heaney
“This story is ordinary in many ways. And extraordinary in one. There weren’t many people from the part of Belfast I grew up in who made it to university. In the last couple of years of the sixties Belfast was burning again, the flames fanned by bitter sectarian strife. For those of us who were teenagers then, it was easy to be sucked into that fire. Someone asked you to ‘look after’ a package for them, or to ‘do something about all this’ with them. Tribal identity has a strong pull. And I was no more immune to it than anyone else. But in April 1969 I was dragged by a teacher to the newly opened Lyric Theatre. I was sixteen, and probably went kicking and screaming. The play was Sheridan’s The School for Scandal. And it changed my life. The thrill of live performance. The sense of that special place that a theatre is. In those days the buses went off early, but I remember walking home on air. And after that I went back again and again. The theatre gave me a sort of literacy. It opened my eyes and it gave me other alternatives to dream about. That’s what the theatre does best. It teaches you to dream with your eyes open. And that’s what I’ve been doing ever since.”
Professor David Johnston
"The rebuild of the Lyric is a cultural imperative and should be at the top of our list of priorities."
Adrian Dunbar
"I have many happy memories of my time here and I hope that the Lyric can find the resources to build a new theatre on this fantastic site."
Ken Stott
"The Lyric is one of our greatest treasures."
James Nesbitt