Thommas Kane Byrne: ‘There’s a reason most of the roles I’m offered are gangland stories. I’m so sick of it’

Thommas Kane Byrne has always stood out in Dublin’s crowded performance scene, not only because of what he can do with his face and body – like a latter-day Michael Kidd, he makes whole narratives out of gestures – but also because of his careful use of the natural resource of his home turf. Raised in St Mary’s Mansions, on Seán MacDermott Street, he draws on the greater surroundings of the north inner city and on the buried tensions of his and his community’s identity. To open a conversation with him is to be hit by a great gale of talk.

Few are a better match for him than Gemma Dunleavy, the petite virtuoso, born into Phil Shanahan House on Sheriff Street, who sings about the people, sounds and concrete that have shaped her. (Her track PhilShanahan Soul is a 36-second ode to her former home.) The two met in childhood – “We both would’ve been in that performance space,” Kane Byrne says, smiling, “so we would’ve always been aware of one another” – and speak together in fast-moving sentences. Where one bobs, the other weaves, each peppering in information their friend might have forgotten.

[ Thommas Kane Byrne: ‘Anxiety can be quite isolating and stressful’ ]

They have collaborated before: Dunleavy has let Kane...
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