This collection of stories, written especially for BBC Radio 4, includes a ten-part sequence: ‘The Circus’, set around Cliftonville Circus, where five roads meet in North Belfast.
It’s five minutes from the nationalist Troubles flashpoint of Ardoyne, where Paul grew up. It’s close to Holy Cross Girls’ School, where protests targeting primary school children drew international attention. The Circus is situated in the poorest part of Belfast – it is also the most divided.
Each road leads to a different area – a different class – a different religion. The Circus explores where old Belfast clashes with the new around acceptance, change, class and diversity. But this is 2024 and a fresh energy exists.
Other stories include ‘Tickles’, a story about a man visiting his mother in a dementia ward where he finds he is the one who had forgotten important things; ‘Cuckoo’, about a man’s collapse and surgery – where he feels something more sinister has happened to him; and ‘Daddy Christmas’, where a gay man writes a letter to the son he never had.
Paul McVeigh began his writing career in Belfast as a playwright, and has written comedy, short stories and flash fiction, as well as a novel, The Good Son (Salt Publishing 2015) which won the Polari First Book Prize and the McCrea Literary Award. His work has been performed on radio, stage and TV, and his short stories published in anthologies, newspapers and literary journals. Paul has taught creative writing at Brighton, London, Swansea and Wolverhampton universities and abroad, and is a judge for several international literary prizes. He co-founded the London Short Story Festival and is Associate Director at the Word Factory. He founded the Paul McVeigh Residency at The Harrison in 2023.
Listen: The Singer by Paul McVeigh, BBC Radio 4