'The Belle of Belfast City', first produced there in 1989, is a story of loyalty, both political and familial. Against the background of protests about the Anglo-Irish Agreement, the play confronts different models of loyalism and allegiance in a rich and honest lament. It centres on Dolly, a former music-hall star. Her elder daughter stayed with her in Belfast, while the younger travelled the world as a journalist, now returning with an illegitimate, mixed-race daughter Belle, named for her grandmother's stage name. The extended family also includes a Protestant loyalist fundamentalist and his sister.

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