Ridiculusmus is already basking in the critical praise bestowed on it at the Edinburgh festival this year and will perform the theatre company's hit play Say Nothing at Croydon's Clocktower on Friday, December 7.

These performers are outsiders looking at Northern Ireland's troubles in an incredibly well informed play.

One man plays different Irish characters with differing views about the Northern Ireland's current problems while the other plays a man with a PHd in Culture and Peace.

Half of this comic duo is 32-year-old John Hough, an Englishman from a Catholic family, who was born in Calcutta.

He freely admits: "I feel displaced everywhere." The other is 32-year-old David Woods.

Both men studied for a degree in English Literature at Sheffield Hallam University but only met each other at the Poor House in Kings Cross.

The two men began performing Say Nothing in Galway in 1999.

He added: "At the time, the play involved four people performing it.

"None of us were from Ireland but we moved there in 1994."

The performers had the offer of residency as a theatre company in Ireland and in such a setting the idea for the play was not hard to come.

"Because we were based there from 1994 until this year we had quite an experience to draw from.

"Friends of ours who worked in the art scene in Derry were given death threats warning them of what would happen if they didn't leave the city.

"That was very intense and this intensity built up and there was a definite need to express that."

David Woods, who was brought up in West Wales, said of Say Nothing: "We sit for an hour and twenty minutes in a suitcase filled with grass and we talk."

"It is quite intense we talk and jump up and down. We're dressed as politicians and the play is like a symbolic representation of the peace process.

"John plays three characters and I play two and we actually share one of the characters."

When asked about the focus of Say Nothing, David, who took time out from the Poor House from 1990-93 to study as a trainee accountant at Croydon College, said: "The fact that people never talk about it is more suggestive than if they did.

"Like those people in South Armagh where the community is very friendly but is a no-go area because the people there support the terrorist community.

"There's about 20 scenes from a stop over point on the Derry Donegal border zone in Muff.

In this setting we play a range of characters including a lady who works in a bed and breakfast.

"The point is that lovely lady at the B&B is probably sitting on top of a load of guns from Gaddafi but you wouldn't be able to tell by talking to her."

"In the past, we've had some nervous people in the audience.

"One of my initial ideas was to dress up as an orange and bounce up and down the street, that was 97/98, when the Orange men were marching.

"I thought if we had some fun with it people would see a lighter side because people in Northern Ireland always take things very seriously.

"Nothing happened after I was told I would be shot by someone with Republican connections.

"The scene's a lot calmer now especially with disarmament starting. We can expect an easier time with the play."

The play begins at 8pm and tickets are priced at £8.

To book call 020 8253 1030.

November 28, 2001 16:00