Dennis Kelly

Couldn't understand anything he said.

And I think, why couldn't you understand what he said?

Like it, cause I was brought up with it, you know, but, um,

And then I lived in Ireland for a little while.

I mean, I grew up sort of thinking, oh, I'm Irish.

I mean, I grew up feeling really strongly Irish and really proud of that side of myself.

And then I went to live in Ireland when I was about 17, chasing a girl.

And I lived in Dublin for about six months.

And suddenly everyone spoke different from me.

You know what I mean?

I was like that English bloke.

I should have gone to Leitrim, that's right.

Do you know what the truth is?

They just asked me, like the RSC came to me and asked me, and I was a bit surprised because I sort of said to them, look, I don't really like musicals.

And they said, oh yeah, that's what we want.

I think they had this idea, like Jeannie, who was the dramaturg at the time, had this idea that

A lot of musicals, a lot of musicals are fantastic, but a lot of them are kind of like the way they're built is a bit sort of, you know, they're built often around the songs first rather than the story.

And she wanted to go to a playwright first and see if you could go that way.

And then you'd have the book of the musical is often afterthought.

You can get great songs and there's some really bad dialogue glue in it together.