Ardal O’Hanlon was a key attraction, in the role of the hapless “twat”, Francois Pignon, at the opening of See You Next Tuesday, at the Gate Theatre this week.

Members of O’Hanlon’s family were present, including his wife, Melanie, his parents, Dr Rory O’Hanlon TD, the Ceann Comhairle, and Teresa O’Hanlon, and his older brother, Rory O’Hanlon.

The play – the English language world premiere of the French work by Francis Veber, Le Diner de Cons – was also attended by the writer Ronald Harwood, who adapted it from the French. He was in Cannes this year with Roman Polanski where they picked up the Palme D’Or for the film The Pianist, a film set in the Warsaw Ghetto.

He’s just finished a screenplay for a film to be directed by Ridley Scott, about David Irving and Deborah Lipstadt and the famous Holocaust denial trial, he explained.

Based in London and Paris, the writer is also just finishing a new play, to be called An English Tragedy. Being in the Gate Theatre, with his wife Natasha Harwood, prompted him to recall working with Micheal Mac Liammoir in 1956, when he was a young actor in a play called The Hidden King, which they performed in Edinburgh.

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