I nearly booked to see Cillian Murphy in Grief Is The Thing With Feathers when it was playing at the O'Reilly Theatre in Dublin earlier this year. 

Jumping on a plane to see a play isn't unprecedented, I've been to see Ben Whishaw in New York - twice* - but in the end, I couldn't get a ticket.

So I'm ecstatic it is going on tour and has a run at the Barbican in London next year (it moves on to St Ann's Warehouse in New York afterwards). 

I've long enjoyed Cillian Murphy's eclectic screen work from the outlandish characters to the subtle, terrifying to the tragic but it was seeing him in a solo performance tearing up the huge Lyttelton stage at the National Theatre in Misterman in 2012 which really cemented my admiration. 

I saw him two years later in existential comedy Ballyturk which was brilliantly absurd and joyful:

Imagine if Dali, with a little help from Camus, had produced an episode of Father Ted.

Grief Is A Thing With Feathers sees him working with Enda Walsh again and centres on a widower and his son. 

Next year is shaping up to be a very exciting year for theatre.

For details of the Barbican and St Ann's run head to the Complicité website.

* First time was The Pride at the Lucille Lutelle in 2010 and then again in The Crucible at the Walter Kerr in 2016