Jimmy Rose: a radio play in a theatrical setting

Pariah Productions presents Jimmy Rose, written and directed by Tom Hall, produced for One Hour Theatre Company, by Victor Merriman.

Jimmy Rose is presented as a radio play in a theatrical setting, offering WoWFest audiences a unique collective listening experience.

At a tender age Herman Melville experienced a reversal of fortune upon the sudden death of his father, a man of apparently substantial means. The family was suddenly confronted with a mountain of debt and the ruin of all their immediate expectations. Perhaps this turn of fate prompted the many critiques of American capitalism which appear both as themes and traces in his body of work.

“Jimmy Rose”, draws on Melville's short story of the same name, set in old New York before the Civil War, and foregrounding a glamorous bachelor plutocrat who has attained an Olympian stature in the city. Everybody knows Jimmy Rose, the great and the good seek to dine at his table, where he dispenses wit, bonhomie, and business advice.

Yet when quite literally his ship(s) fail to come in, this paragon of American success falls from that Paradise from whose heights he once projected ultimate authority and influence. It is an honour to present "Jimmy Rose" under WoWFEST 2026's theme, New World Disorder, not least because of the origins of contemporary upheavals in a febrile world-financial system forged in nineteenth-century urban America. - Tom Hall, Dublin. May 2026

Jimmy Rose is Tom Hall’s fifth play for WoWFest, his Bartleby: A Tale of Wall Street featuring in the online festival (2021), Anything for a Laugh (2024), I Live Alone and My Own Free Voice (double bill, 2025). Tom was born in Vermont, USA, and has lived in Ireland since 1995, following periods in Mexico, where he began writing. Jimmy Rose develops the production values of previous plays, which featured solo performers, David Llewelyn (2021), Victor Merriman (2024 and 2025a), and Jane Hogarth (2025b), respectively. Tom assembled a cast of well-established Irish actors to record the play at Les Keye's Arad Studios, Dublin. Brendan Conroy, who is known to Liverpool audiences for his lead role in Lizzie Nunnery’s Intemperance (Capital of Culture production, Everyman Theatre), plays Jimmy Rose.

Victor Merriman is Emeritus Professor in Drama at Edge Hill University, and a founder-director of One Hour Theatre Company.

Date: Tuesday 19th May
Time: 17.30 – 18.30 (doors open 5.15pm)
Venue: Quaker Meeting House, School Lane, Liverpool (Beside Bluecoat Arts Centre)
Tickets: £5

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