When the flyer from Irish actor/writer Rebecca Dawson landed in Queerguru’s in-tray, it put a big smile on our editor’s face. He may be a US citizen now, but his family is in Northern Ireland, and they all ask each other “What’s The Craic?”   In his house, God is not the decision maker.  It’s pronounced ‘crack’  and literally means ” what’s up?”   And if someone tells you that they had ‘a great craic ‘, it means that you had a very good time. 

In this instance What’s the craic God?” is a darkly hilarious and emotionally honest new one-woman play that Rebecca Donovan is performing at Edinburgh Fringe.  It follows 17-year-old Aoife, a sharp-tongued teenager counting down the days until she can escape her rural Irish town. Between Catholic school, family chaos, secret crushes and increasingly desperate conversations with God, Aoife tries to navigate sexuality, shame and the fear of becoming stuck in the life expected of her. Combining dark humour with emotional honesty, the show explores growing up queer in an environment where nobody wants to talk about it.

Rebecca Donovan told QUEERGURU that What’s the Craic, God? grew out of the diaries she kept as a teenager, scribbled thoughts from the brink of adulthood, when everything felt too big, too bright and too confusing. The play explores the messy charm of Irish adolescence: how humour becomes both survival and rebellion, and how the things left unsaid can shape a person completely. 

Coming out gay is rarely an easy road in any language or culture, but being in an Irish Catholic household is really up there.  Donovan said she rarely saw queer Irish girls reflected in the stories around her. “There was nobody who sounded like me, came from where I came from, or felt what I was feeling. When the world doesn’t reflect you back, you start to wonder if there’s something wrong with you, or if you simply don’t belong in it.”

Written as both a dark comedy and a coming-of-age story, the show was created to offer visibility to people who rarely see themselves represented onscreen or onstage. “Part of writing this play was trying to give the younger version of myself what she didn’t have,” Donovan says. “A story that says: you’re real, you’re allowed, and there’s nothing shameful about who you are.”

Rebecca Donovan is an Irish writer and performer based in Glasgow. Her work fuses comedy with emotionally grounded storytelling, exploring identity, working-class experience, queer life and family dysfunction through an Irish perspective.   She is performing the play at the Edinburgh Fringe…..and to be sure, it will be a great craic.