Gary Mitchell

In November 2005, he was forced out of his home in the Belfast suburb of Rathcoole after it was attacked by loyalist paramilitaries. He and his family had to live in hiding somewhere in Northern Ireland which forced Mitchell to put his career on hold for five years.

He was writer-in-residence at the Royal National Theatre, London in 1999.

From a working-class, loyalist background, Mitchell's first foray into writing was for Radio 4. His first play was produced by Tinderbox but Mitchell's first major theatre success was the production (by Connall Morrison) of his In A Little World of Our Own at the Peacock, a gripping and unflinching portrayal of loyalist culture. It won The Irish Times Theatre Award for Best New Play in 1997, and it later went to Belfast as part of an Abbey Theatre tour. The following year the Peacock Theatre produced his As The Beast Sleeps.

Gary Mitchell (born 3 May 1965) is a Northern Irish playwright. By the 2000s, he had become "one of the most talked about voices in European theatre ... whose political thrillers have arguably made him Northern Ireland's greatest playwright".