The Body & Blood
Carol Murphy
Sat 4th Feb - Sun 5th Feb
16:20 (
70 mins)
Theatre
Tickets from £13.00
Venue: Cavern
Age Guidance: 18+
Contains Strong Language, Adult Themes and Descriptions of Violence
An original idea written and performed by the artist, writer and filmmaker, Carol Murphy, The Body & Blood is a 19th Century Irish Famine Folk Fable told in verse. It is the story of Maggie Murtagh, an Irish country girl who transmogrifies into The Vigilante Cannibal Nun during The Famine, after the death of her family. She steals from the rich to give to the starving poor. She eats the colonizers; becomes an addict; and destroys her soul on her quest to seek revenge.
The Body & Blood was launched online in January 2022 as five films at https://www.thebodyandblood.co.uk then performed live at The Black Box in Belfast. For the second performance, Carol Murphy, travels from Belfast to the Waterloo Vaults to perform her one woman show and to take you on an unruly journey from innocence to bloody violence to wild craic to the living dead.
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Carol Murphy
The creator and performer of The Body & Blood, Carol Murphy, is an artist, filmmaker and writer from Belfast. She completed fine art residencies and film labs at Atelier’s 63, The Rutger Hauer Film Factory and The Binger Filmlab in Holland; The Turino Film Lab in Italy; Screen Training Ireland’s First Draft & Beyond Lab; and on residency at DAS in Belfast. She won the RTÉ Filmbase Award; the Rankin Film & TV Collabor8te Scheme; and an NI Screen Shorts Award. Murphy has made four shorts including Mustard and Painkiller; a body of art videos; a series of fashion films; and Finbar’s Private Netherland for the MAC in Belfast. Feature scripts include The Come to Jesus Moment, Golden Boy and Sailortown. Murphy is developing The Silent Tide, a horror feature film, with Fantastic Films in Dublin.
Press & Reviews
Dig With It Magazine *****
This is the season of the Vigilante Cannibal Nun. Her name is Maggie Murtagh and she’s made an online visitation from the Irish Famine, feasting on raw innards of clergy, nobility, and English soldiers. She wears hip-hop bling and commits heretical acts. She channels trauma and terror and often, she’s as funny as all get-out.
Stuart Bailie
Coraleater on Instagram *****
You know when the algorithms throw you a bone and you get something new to love, we’ll thank goodness it’s you and Maggie.
Brilliant piece of work, words, look and delivery.
Refusing to watch all on one go, delayed gratification, although as a live piece I’d definitely be there.
Anyway thanks for bringing something beautiful into the world.
Mary-Kate O’Flanagan, Writer, Script Editor, Storyteller and Winner of The Moth *****
An astonishingly original piece of work performed with verve and humour by the creator. A rollercoaster ride through the story of a vigilante cannibal nun who embodies the suppressed rage and trauma of a people - leavened with sly humour and music. This work could only have come out of Belfast - and the mind of Carol Murphy. Not to be missed.
Liz Lordan, lover of art, film and culture on Instagram *****
I had the amazing fortune to see The Body and Blood at @theblackboxbelfast on Sunday night. @carolmurphyartworker was spellbinding as Maggie Murtagh a woman at the time of the Irish famine. It's an incredible story of a girl who escapes an arranged marriage and her family by becoming a nun. Maggie's story becomes a far more unusual one from that point onwards. Maggie does become a vigilante cannibal nun but she always maintained my sympathy, was darkly funny and had her own brilliant ideas around trying to make sense of the horror surrounding her. Carol Murphy is an incredible writer and performer.
Cast & Creative Team Writer, Performer, Designer: CAROL MURPHY
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