Additional Information
Niamh Cusack
Niamh Cusack is a well-known and much-loved stage and screen actress. She has just finished filming on Jack Thorne’s new series The Falling. She can now be seen in the Channel 4 series Big Mood and the ITV series I, Jack Wright.
Most recent film work: We Live in Time (StudioCanal/Sunnymarch), Midwinter Break (Film4), In the Land of Saints and Sinners, Four Mothers and Unwelcome.
Recent theatre work includes: Circle Mirror Transformation (Gate Theatre), That Face (Orange Tree), Hamlet (Bristol Old Vic); Faith Healer (Abbey Theatre), My Brilliant Friend (National Theatre Olivier) and Macbeth (RSC/Barbican).
Other television work includes: The Tower (ITV), The Virtues (Channel 4), Rebellion (RTE/Netflix), The Best of Men (BBC), and The Hollow Crown (BBC).
Dónal Finn
A 2023 Irish Screen Star, Dónal is currently shooting The Other Bennett Sister for the BBC alongside Richard E. Grant and Indira Varma (which is yet to be announced). He has just wrapped filming the co-lead in Guy Ritchie’s Young Sherlock for Amazon playing Moriarty and opposite Hero Fiennes-Tiffin and can be seen back on our screens as Eoin McGonigal in Rogue Heroes S2 for the BBC. He recently closed Anais Mitchell’s 8 Tony award-winning musical Hadestown in which he played the lead, male role, Orpheus in the West End. Prior to this he wrapped his lead role, Mat, in series 3 of Wheel of Time for Amazon. Dónal starred in Barbara Broccoli’s stage adaptation of Sing Street in the U. S. and shot a brilliant role in feature film, Four Letters of Love alongside Helena Bonham Carter and Pierce Brosnan. Other credits include, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, The Witcher and Cursed for Netflix. In 2019, Dónal performed in Albion at the Almeida opposite Daisy Edgar Jones to rave reviews. His first professional role was in How to Build a Girl opposite Beanie Feldstein, directed by Coky Giedroyc.
Aoife Hinds
Aoife can currently be seen in the hit HBO Max show Dune Prophecy alongside Mark Strong, Shirley Henderson and Emily Watson. The show is set 10,000 years before the events of Dune and based on the novel Sisterhood of Dune by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. The show was just re-commissioned for HBO and will shoot later this summer. Aoife can also be seen in John Crowley’s critically acclaimed We Live in Time opposite Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield which had its world premiere at TIFF and also premiered at LFF. She had a supporting role in Netflix’s film Scoop with Billie Piper and Gillian Anderson and also performed in the acclaimed Almeida Theatre production Patriots written by Peter Morgan and directed by Rupert Goold. She can also be seen in Hellraiser, the reboot of the cult classic 80s Horror Movie for Hulu directed by David Bruckner and in Cottontail for up and coming director Patrick Dickinson. In television, she can be seen in The Long Call for ITV as well as Anne Boleyn opposite Jodie Turner-Smith and Paapa Essiedu. Aoife got her big breaks in BBC/Hulu mega hit Normal People, where she played Helen, and in the Channel 4 / Netflix Comedy Derry Girls.
Peter McDonald
Peter McDonald is an Irish Oscar-nominated stage and screen actor and director.
His recent theatre credits include Three Sisters (Almeida); Travesties (Apollo Theatre); The Weir (Donmar Theatre, London); The Days of Wines and Roses (Donmar); The Caretaker (Trafalgar Studios); Glengarry Glen Ross (Apollo Theatre); The Veil, Greenland, Exiles, The Aristocrats (National).
His film/TV credits include Woken; The Batman; Fanny Lye Deliver’d; The Dig; Bagman; England is Mine; The Stag, which he co-wrote; Wreckers; The Damned United; Nora; Saltwater; The Penguin; This Town; Mandy; Dublin Murders; The Last Kingdom; Thirteen; Virtuoso; Murder; No Offence; May Day; Moone Boy.
He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film for his short film Pentecost.
In March 2024, Peter read Robert Bridges in Dead Poets Live’s show about Gerard Manley Hopkins.
Safe Passage
Dead Poets Live donate all the proceeds from our shows to Safe Passage, a charity which helps unaccompanied child refugees and vulnerable adults in Europe find safe, legal routes to the UK. Safe Passage’s legal team works with families living in the UK who are trying to reunite with relatives that are asylum seekers in Europe and on dangerous journeys. The aim is for refugees to avoid falling into the hands of smugglers or risk life-threatening routes to Britain.
Only half a per cent (0.54%) of the UK’s total population is made up of asylum seekers and refugees, and when accounting for population size, the UK ranks 19th overall in Europe for asylum applications received. Those that do come to the UK do so for various reasons – many make the journey to reach family and friends, because of cultural ties, or through no choice of their own, because of the actions of traffickers. Most of the Ukrainians we have supported at Safe Passage wanted to come to the UK because they saw Britain as a welcoming country that respected human rights. However, the vast majority of even the small number who attempt to reach the UK end up in Calais and Dunkirk with no access to safe routes. Between 2010 and 2020, only 6% of unaccompanied children who received asylum in the UK arrived via a safe route. Since the Government closed the two major safe routes for unaccompanied children, 83% fewer refugees have arrived via a safe route in the 12 months to June 2023 compared to the previous year.
Two years since Kabul fell to the Taliban, and the Government is still failing to honour its commitments to help Afghans reach safety. Through our legal work, we have observed first-hand that the current schemes are too slow and too restrictive. Many at-risk Afghans have no way to reach safety in the UK, and families who were separated in the evacuation still have no way to reunite with their children and loved ones. Without functioning safe routes, more and more eligible Afghans have been left with no choice but to risk dangerous journeys to reach safety in the UK. To the end of August this year 4,080 Afghans crossed the Channel, compared to just 69 Afghans crossing the Channel in the whole of 2019. Currently, around 1 in 5 of all people crossing the Channel are from Afghanistan. To urgently prevent further loss of life and to honour these commitments, the Government must act now to provide safe routes and offer welcome and compassion to Afghans in need of safety.
We’re the only organisation working with children at risk on the ground in both the country they find themselves in and the country they wish to reach. This, combined with our high quality casework, is unique and has proven particularly effective at cracking open legal routes.
Our field teams help identify and support child refugees who are eligible for transfer and ensure this happens quickly and safely. Where there are unexpected delays we reassure the child and make sure they remain out of the hands of smugglers.
Our team attend the arrivals of child refugees we’ve helped reunite with family, to make sure they have a welcoming face when they arrive in their new home and restart their life in the UK. We also have a volunteer Community Mentoring programme that helps refugees settle by helping them register with a GP, sign up for school or other specialist organisations that may assist them with specific problems.’
