Senior Acting Stream presents: Never Closer

Grace Chapple’s Never Closer is a gripping, darkly funny new Australian work set in Northern Ireland during The Troubles. Five childhood friends reunite on Christmas Eve, a decade older and further apart than they’d like to admit. When Niamh arrives with her English fiancé Harry in tow, everything left unsaid finds its moment.

Director Romy Bartz first encountered the play at Downstairs Belvoir 25A in 2022 and knew immediately it was right for her Senior Acting students. “They felt the immense weight of the play, and fell in love with it completely,” she says. Staging it proved harder than expected. Never Closer gathered momentum with Sydney audiences and was picked up for upstairs Belvoir just as the College had planned to present it. So, they waited two years for the rights.

The accent work alone would have deterred many school productions. Northern Irish dialect is exacting, and there was no cutting corners. “I was initially nervous,” Bartz admits, “but the challenge has been joyous and has only strengthened the ensemble as a whole.”