A play that caused serious controversy when it made its debut in Dublin is set to shock local audiences during this year's Galway Arts Festival. Blackbird, written by David Harrower, is one of the highlights of the festival's theatrical programme but is sure to receive a mixed reaction due to its confrontation of such issues as paedophilia and child abuse.

The play opened to stunned audience at the Edinburgh Film Festival and was branded 'shocking', 'crude' and 'immoral' by early observers. However, the play has since enjoyed critical acclaim, receiving such accolades as the prestigious Olivier Award.

Blackbird, featuring Stuart Graham and Judith Roddy, will run for 12 nights at the Nun's Island Theatre, but, with the publication of the Ryan Report still fresh in the public's minds, it is expected to provoke varied opinions.

Festival Artistic Director Paul Fahy has stood by his decision to include the play, saying he hopes to stimulate discussion and raise important topics.

"Blackbird had its first production at the Edinburgh Festival in 2005, where I saw it originally. Andrew Flynn had also seen it and suggested the production to me this year, produced by his company Decadent. The content of the play is strong. The play is about a young woman confronting an older man about the nature of their 'relationship' from years earlier. The play is hard hitting and raises various issues, which we are sure will lead to much discussion.

"The more art can raise and deal with such important topics, the better as far as I am concerned and each year the festival features work that can be judged by some as controversial but to others rich in subject matter. We hope that Galway Arts Festival will in some way challenge and enlighten our audiences and that the effect of these works will generate much thought and discourse long after the 2009 festival is over."

The programme includes other controversial works, including Child Soldier, an exhibition highlighting the horrors of what goes on in Africa and the Middle East when young people are exploited through war; Palace of the End, which deals with three families experiences of the Iraq war and a talk by Colm O’Gorman, based on his book Beyond Belief, dealing with the clerical abuse he suffered as a child and subsequent battle with the church.

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