The Birthday Cake by Niamh Gleeson | Rehearsed reading

Marion and Peter have moved from Killiney to Artane and their old lives are becoming a distant memory. Peter has picked himself up after his firm went bust and is promoting yoghurt for a dynamic new company. Marion is concentrating on keeping her golf handicap in single figures and keeping Ellen focused on the books coming up to her Leaving Cert. It’s Ellen’s birthday weekend and her sister Jen announces that she has landed the job of her dreams – so things are looking up, aren’t they? When their new next-door neighbour pops around to give out yards about the latest au pair disaster, it triggers a disastrous chain of events which forces everyone to assess their role in maintaining appearances at all costs.

Niamh Gleeson is from Dublin and trained as a professional actor in the Gaiety School of Acting, before turning her hand to writing. She is writer-in-residence in Marino CDVEC and annually writes a children’s play for the Theatre Studies course which is performed in dozens of primary schools in the inner-city each year.