DAN McGARRY
Actor | Writer | Director
For my Acting CV please follow this link. For everything else I've been upto recently, keep scrolling...
Much Ado About Nothing
JUNE 2025
Back on directing duty at UoN. So why set a 400-year-old play in the garden of an 80s karaoke bar? Much Ado is one of my favourite Shakespeare comedies and one that I keep coming back to. What draws me to the music of the 80s is the apparent superficial nature of it and how that chimes with the themes of the play. There are elements of this play which at first seem, problematic by today’s standards and it has been my pleasure to dig deep with this excellent cast to find the depth and truth behind these parts of the story and how we let our versions of the characters share their truth.
Biting Point
APRIL 2025
Having been a part of the R&D in 2024, it was loads of fun providing many of the voices for this headphone show from the wonderful Middle Child
Photo: Tom Arran
WDHTBL Commissions
From November 2024 - January 2025 we commissioned an additional 18 writers with funding from Arts Council England. A crack team of actors was brought in to perform each of the new works for a room full of supportive audience. We used online feedback forms to ensure we captured as much feedback as possible and I offered individual feedback sessions for each of the writers.
Photo: Rebecca Cockcroft
Jolly Christmas Postman
DECEMBER 2024
Join the Jolly Postman on a frosty, fairytale adventure in this brand-new stage adaptation from Royal & Derngate. This award-winning story for all the family sees the Jolly Postman cycling through the snow to deliver parcels and letters to familiar friends as they prepare for Christmas celebrations. On actor/musician duty here - look forward to seeing you there!
Writing Doesn't Have To Be Lonely Showcase 2024
OCTOBER 2024
6 BRAND NEW pieces of writing performed on the Royal & Derngate main stage, presented by yours truly.
Photo: Rebecca Cockcroft
Ghosts of Libertalia
OCTOBER 2024
I took the role of Adam in a rehearsed reading of Matthew Gabrielli’s new play. Ghosts of Libertalia mixes historical drama and horror, inspired by the legends and realities of 18th Century Pirates, it’s a play about outsiders finding their own community, how we build a better world and how the stories we tell about the past shape the present.
Biting Point - R&D
NATIONAL THEATRE, JULY 2024
Teaming up again with Middle Child, it was great fun to bring this new play by Sid Sagar to life before it tours in 2025 - really looking forward to the next stage!
Fresh Ink - New Writers Festival
JULY 2024
Delighted to be working with Middle Child again. Appearing in Phobia by Andrew Houghton. More information here.
Romeo and Juliet
JUNE 2024
Back on directing duty for the University of Northampton. I used metal security barriers to keep the star crossed lovers apart, a British cowboy aesthetic which worked well in the open air with a bombastic soundtrack and a Juliet that we kept onstage for the whole of the 2nd half as the world crumbles around her.
Photo: Lucy Booton
Baby, He Loves You
APRIL 2024
How well do we know those who love us the most? Bride-to-be Jodie is enjoying a rollercoaster of engagement parties and hen dos as her big day approaches. But when skeletons begin to tumble out of the closet, she must finally question what it means to love your family, no matter what. Was delighted. to play the role of Phil in this amazing production from the fantastic Middle Child in my native Hull.
Photo: Tom Arran
Mr Edmund
NOVEMBER 2023
Was honoured to have been commissioned to adapt this wonderful family film for its world stage premiere. Looking to tour in late 2025.
37 Plays for the RSC
NOVEMBER 2023
So proud to see this through to completion. Directing 1 and acting in the other 4 of the 5 pieces chosen from Northampton (more than anywhere else in the country) for this once-in-a-lifetime project from the Royal Shakespeare Company. Great video here.
UoN London Fringe
SEPTEMBER 2023
Working with 3 groups of final year BA Acting Students at the University of Northampton, I helped them create 3 brand new plays in an intensive 2 week project that culminated in a sold out performance at the lovely Camden People's theatre.
July 2023 - SILHOuETTE YT
37 Plays read through
There was such joy in reading 5 of the 37 plays selected for this amazing project at a lovely event attended by the writers and can't wait to perform them in November!
July 2023 - ROYAL and DERNGATE
The Three Musketeers
I am delighted to be directing the Actors Company for this funny, high-energy, swashbuckling adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ classic novel by John Nicholson and Le Navet Bete. (Photos: Graeme Braidwood Costume Design: Victoria Youngson)
July 5th 2023 - ROYAL AND DERNGATE
Writing Doesn't Have to Be Lonely
Episode 44 will see 5 new works from emerging and established writers performed by a a wonderful team of actors. Follow this link to the event page and get in touch to get involved.
June 2023 - Waterside Campus, Uon
Twelfth Night
The 1990s was the last age of innocence. A time before smart phones and social media, a time when you had to have been there to experience it, you couldn’t see the video, the post, the tweet, the meme. The political landscape was changing, the music landscape was shifting and Manchester was a massive part of that. This is in many ways a love letter to that time. The time when I first picked up a guitar, when I first stood on stage and sang songs and stood on other stages and performed the words of Shakespeare. Because, if you are going to write a love letter, whose better words to use than The Bard himself. I hope you agree that the story of separated siblings, a magnificent tale of misunderstanding and mistaken identity, a fable filled with fabulous characters, translates to a field somewhere in the North West, sometime in the mid 90s. (MORE IMAGES TO COME SOON)
January 8th 2023 - INNOVATION CENTRE Uon
Writers Retreat II - The Sequel
Leading towards the RSC's 37 Plays project, this is another chance for writers to home their scripts with deadlines approaching.
NOvember 25th - December 31st 2022 - ROYAL & DERNGATE
The Night Before Christmas
Twas the night before Christmas when all through the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse…
Having enchanted children at Christmas time for more than 200 years this popular festive poem bursts into life in a magical production for under 7s and their grown-ups. Watch in amazement as Father Christmas and his reindeer fly through the starlit sky on their busy Christmas Eve journey ensuring that every last present is delivered on time! (Photo credit - Robert Day).
December 8th 2022 - 7.15pm
Writing Doesn't Have to be Lonely
Episode 40! Come along to the Royal & Derngate Northampton for more BRAND NEW writing. If you are a writer or actor - get in touch to get involved. If you are a creative or you just enjoy new work, come along anyway!
November 3rd 2022 - 7pm - ROYAL & DERNGATE
Writing Doesn't Have To Be Lonely
Established in Feb 2018, this monthly event was set up to be the open-mic of scriptwriters. The writers provide brand new scripts that are yet to see the light of day, we provide the actors so that the writers can hear their work performed at a developmental stage.
This episode will be part of the Royal & Derngate's GenFest festival, and features work from Salli Belsham, Gemma Boaden, Steve Dimmer, Helen Gibb, Pethrow Gooden, Callum Green and Al Holloway being performed by a wonderful team of actors.
NOVEMBER 2022 - 7PM - ROYAL & DERNGATE
Bert's House
A brand new play by Lou Chawner, Directed by Dan McGarry and starring Lou Chawner, Amy Brown, Scott Bradley, Alena Patel, Taresh Solanki and Gemma Boaden.
ONGOING
37 Plays
Working alongside Silhouette Youth Theatre, we are encouraging as many people as we can to submit new writing as part of the once-in-a-generation 37 Plays project from the RSC. We took a trip to the RSC for workshops on September 13th, ran a writers retreat on October 1st and plan another in January before the submission deadline.
July 8th 2022
I'm a Bad Mum
Working alongside writer/performer Gemma Boaden, I worked through script development and then directed this one-woman piece about what happens to your identity when becoming a mother. Utilising Gemma's unique vocal talents, we placed 22 different voices on stage.
JUNE 2022 and ongoing
Quince
Working alongside clowning consultant Frank Wurzinger, Director Erica Martin and Writer/Performer Scott Bradley, I worked as a Dramaturg and Script Consultant to help bring Scott's vision of the life and times of one of Shakespeare's iconic characters to the stage. For this project, we really interrogated dismantling the 4th wall and blurring 'truth' and fiction.
June 2022, 2019 and 2018
A Bump in the Road
Commission by Aspire Higher, this site specific play features 2 crashed cars, 10 actors, 2 police officers, a fire crew and an ambulance with 8 paramedics. When this was first put to me, the question really was, 'can this be done?' We emphatically proved it could be and have refined the project for the next two incarnations.
April 2022 - Belgrade theatre
Fighting Irish
On Actor/Musician duty, I took the roles of Gabriel Lawless and the Judge in this fantastic show, Directed by Corey Campbell that played to sold out audiences and great reviews. (Photo Credit - Robert Day)
NOVEmber 2021 - filming
Microagressions
Working alongside Northamptonshire Police, I was commissioned to write and produce 9 short films to act as conversation starters within workshops on escalating microaggressions within a University environment. The scripts came from workshops with students and we employed 15 current and former students to create the scenarios.
September 2021 - Royal & Derngate 2021
60 Miles by Road or Rail
Having helped to devise the show in 2018, the show returned with a new script from Ryan Leder, Directed by Andy Routledge. What started as a piece about Northampton becoming a new town 50 years ago, quickly turned into a theatrical event about the state of the nation. (Photo credit - Ali Wright)
June 2021 - WATERSIDE CAMPUS, UoN
The Tempest
Coming out of lockdown, I directed an all-female cast of one of Shakespeare's late comedies.
(Photo credit - James Smith)
June 2020 - FIlm
As You Like It (in Lockdown)
As the pandemic hit, an open air production was forced to move to film. But rather than a static Zoom reading, each of my 17 actors in 16 locations (spread over Europe) was armed with a camera and we pieced together a 90 minute film that was held up as an example of 'art overcoming adversity' by The Guardian, BBC and even received a mention in Parliament.
2019 - Nationwide tour
Seeking Isolde
Co-written with Sara Bodinar, I starred in this one-man show, Directed by Melissa May Smith as we took it on a nationwide tour. (Photo credit - Benji Dotan)
Imagine diving into the sea and finding a secret kingdom with people living in it! This is what happened to Frank, a geeky amateur diver, who discovered Lyonesse, a land that sank beneath the waves during the times of King Arthur. Horrible Histories meets the world’s geekiest Indiana Jones in this hilarious new show with original songs.
May 2019 - ISHAM STUDIO, NORTHAMPTON
Much Ado About Nothing
The play was transported to Greenland (during its own plans to leave the EU) at the end of the Falklands War for a retelling of this Shakespeare comedy with a fantastic soundtrack. (Photo credit - James Smith)
2018 - ISham Studio, Northampton
Aladdin
Cast of 20 wonderful 3rd year students at UoN. In the round, no set, but loads of fun.
2017 - Royal & Derngate
Go Down Swinging
What happens when the thing that defines you is taken away. For this, I was on Writer / Director / Actor duty (not doing that again!) - but was delighted at the response to this play about a boxer who has to quit at the top of his game. Exploring issues of damage, childhood trauma and 'truth'. We also used real boxers from Far Cotton ABC to add authenticity to the boxing scenes. (Photo credit - Luca Pau)
