Niall Donald

And, you know, the answer is, well, the answer is because people, it humanizes Jerry Hutch.

Mm-hmm.

Well, I think so.

I mean, it is extraordinary is a good word because...

you know, it is not an ordinary thing, right?

Because there's loads of biopics about flawed characters or criminal characters even.

But when you see him sitting there, like it is, it does sort of, you get a gasp of breath because, you know, it's not a historical play like about somebody in an IRA man in the 1970s.

I mean, this is somebody that's alive and

still in the newspapers for being investigated for organized crime and, you know, ran for election recently.

And it is, so, you know, it is a powerful moment.

Now that doesn't mean that it is, you know, there's a huge debate about, you know, that it affects the objectivity of it as a play.

And that's definitely an absolutely legitimate debate.

But as a piece of theatre, if you strip back the moral question, it is powerful when you see it there.

Because, you know, it just is.

You're really taken in by the whole... Well, I mean, so that's all of this as a piece of art.

So I suppose...

when Rex Ryan was talking to me here, he was saying, well, he wants things to be controversial and he wants you to be in a theatre and feel like this isn't a safe production.

That's what he wants.

It's not that he wants it to be, you know, it's not that he wants to avoid any controversy or any criticism.

He's trying to embrace it effectively now, I'm paraphrasing him, but that's the general idea.