David Ireland is a worried man. The Northern Irish playwright’s darkly comic, deeply political works about the Troubles have prompted trigger warnings and audience walk-outs in their time. Notoriously, Cyprus Avenue, described by the Guardian as “the most shocking play on the London stage”, culminated in a stomach-turning act of infanticide.
But this is not what concerns him today. Ireland has just explained how, around four year ago – just as he began writing his latest work The Fifth Step, which is about to premiere at the Edinburgh international festival – he started praying. Then he began reading the Bible and attending services at an evangelical Christian church on the southside of Glasgow, where he lives with his young family. This led to his baptism earlier this year.
