Connections 2025: Normalised

Performed by Brassneck Youth (Belfast)

How do you protect a memory against a homophobic bully, when the bully is your own brother?

When an environmental campaign is the catalyst for protecting an LGBTQIA+ shrine, a group of friends must confront what comes first – friends, or family. And as the stakes rise, the battle lines are drawn between being loyal, being an ally, and what does “normal” really mean anyway?

Amanda Verlaque is from Northern Ireland and lives between Belfast and Dublin. She worked in TV drama as a script editor, storyliner and producer before starting her writing career, and now writes for stage, screen, audio and VR.

The Lyric produced This Sh*t Happens All the Time, her critically acclaimed play about homophobia, misogyny and coercive control, which was revived by the Grand Opera House. The MAC produced her audio play Lolly about warring sisters trying to navigate the Covid lockdown, and her critically acclaimed play  Distortion, about political hypocrisy, homophobia and PR spin.

Verlaque adapted and wrote the pilot for An Irish Country Doctor based on Patrick Taylor’s award winning novel and she made her directorial debut with Egg, her VR short film set during World War Two.

She has been under commission to The Abbey, Ireland’s national theatre and was one of the Irish Theatre Institute’s Six in The Attic artists for 2022/23. Amanda is now writing for BBC Scotland’s River City.