Arsenic & Old Lace, the classic American farcical black comedy, will be brought to the stage of the Town Hall Theatre this month by the award-winning Galway company KATS.

The Knocknacarra-based KATS will perform Joseph Kesselring’s 1939 hit play on Wednesday 21, Thursday 22, and Friday 23 May at 8pm. Kesselring’s best-known work, it has been described by The New York Times as “so funny that none of us will ever forget it”. Arsenic & Old Lace centres on New Yorker Mortimer Brewster, whose happy life is about to be turned upside down by his rather insane, and sometimes homicidal, family. Mortimer visits his aunts to tell them he has become engaged, only to discover that they have been poisoning lonely old men for years! When Mortimer’s maniacal brother, Jonathan (who strangely now resembles Boris Karloff) returns on the night that the aunts were planning to bury the newest victim, Mortimer must rally to help his aunts and protect his fiancée — all while trying to keep his own sanity.

The award-winning actor and singer, Stephen Macken, will make his directorial debut with this uproarious farce. The producer is Linsey Cant. The cast also features an array of award-winning and highly experienced actors.

The cast is: Hugh Mulqueen (Mortimer), Ger Holmes (Aunt Abby), Joan Gildea (Aunt Martha), and Dave Langan (Jonathan), along with Kevin Hussey, Damien O’Keefe, Ruth Randles, Colin Geraghty, Hannah O’Connor, Donal Cahill, Julian Jorge, David Booth, Chris Mepham, and Mervyn Fahy.