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film · Friday 9 October 2026 · 7:30pm 
NT Live: The Playboy of the Western World
At Garter Lane Theatre · 22a O'Connell Street, Waterford, Co. Waterford
At Garter Lane Theatre · 22a O'Connell Street, Waterford, Co. Waterford
Garter Lane Arts Centre screens the National Theatre Live broadcast of John Millington Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World on Friday, 9 October 2026, at 7:30pm. The screening is presented in collaboration with National Theatre Live, the programme that films British stage productions for cinema release, bringing a major London staging of one of the best known plays in the Irish repertoire to a Waterford screen. Tickets cost €15 plus booking fee.
The Playboy of the Western World, first staged at Dublin’s Abbey Theatre in 1907 and notorious for the riots its opening week provoked, follows Christy Mahon, a young man who arrives in a remote Mayo village claiming to have killed his father and is treated as a hero for it. Synge’s play is a fixture of the Irish theatre canon, and an NT Live screening gives Waterford audiences access to a full scale professional production without travelling to London or Dublin, filmed with the multi camera coverage and close ups that NT Live broadcasts are built around. Garter Lane has hosted NT Live screenings before as part of its film and theatre crossover programming, alongside its own home grown theatre productions, and this screening fits the same pattern.
Garter Lane Theatre is on O’Connell Street in Waterford city centre, close to the Quay and a short walk from Plunkett rail station and the main bus stops. Street parking and nearby car parks serve the O’Connell Street area.
An evening at an NT Live screening works well paired with dinner nearby on O’Connell Street or the Quay beforehand. There is more to see in Waterford and across Co. Waterford.
Heading to Garter Lane Theatre in Waterford? Waterford has plenty more to see. Read the Waterford area guide, find what else is on, and explore the towns and villages nearby.