The author’s new novel centres around an elderly couple bound in a suicide pact. Watching her parents age, the subject of dying with dignity is never far from her mind
Ahead of
The Visiting Hour, the Gate Theatre s inaugural recent online production, the play’s performers spoke about the circumstances leading to its writing. Judith Roddy explained that she had long harboured an ambition to work alongside Stephen Rea and asked if Frank McGuinness might write something for them. As it happened, according to Rea, McGuinness was ‘working on something’ that might work rather well, a one-act drama that unfolds as a daughter visits her father at a residential home, a setting that crystalizes the longing and loss suffered by those separated from aged parents and loved ones during the Covid pandemic.