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Faith Healer

By: Brian Friel
Narrated by: Ciarán Hinds, Michelle Fairley, Toby Jones
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Publisher's summary

Meet Frank Hardy, Faith Healer.

This is one story with three storytellers, each with their own perspective on their shared history.

Each tale brings new revelations through a spellbinding narrative that enters the realm of a deep, shamanic ritual, guiding the listener through the hearts and minds of faith healer Frank, his wife Grace and his manager Teddy.

Faith Healer is recognised as a masterpiece of modern theatre. Written by Brian Friel, one of Ireland’s most celebrated playwrights, Faith Healer is a dramatic enactment about the fictions of memory, a meditation on the role and responsibility of the artist in society and an exploration of the meanings of healing and salvation.

This all-star production is created especially for Audible by internationally acclaimed theatre director Ian Rickson, former artistic director of the Royal Court, starring a cast of theatrical titans: Ciaran Hinds (The Terror, The Crucible), Michelle Fairley (Game of Thrones, Julius Caesar) and Toby Jones (Detectorists, Uncle Vanya). Sound design by Ian Dickinson for Autograph Sound.

©2021 Brian Friel (P)2021 Audible, Ltd
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About the Playwright

Brian Friel (9 January 1929 – 2 October 2015) is widely regarded as one of Ireland’s greatest dramatists, having written over 30 plays across six decades. He was a member of Aosdana, the society of Irish artists, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Irish Academy of Letters, and the Royal Society of Literature where he was made a Companion of Literature. He was awarded the Ulysses Medal by University College, Dublin.
Plays include Hedda Gabler (after Ibsen), The Home Place, Performances, Three Plays After ( Afterplay, The Bear, The Yalta Game), Uncle Vanya (after Chekhov), Give Me Your Answer Do!, Molly Sweeney (Winner of the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Foreign Play), Wonderful Tennessee, A Month in the Country (after Turgenev), The London Vertigo (after Charles Macklin), Dancing at Lughnasa (Winner of 3 Tony Awards including Best Play, New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play, Olivier Award for Best Play), Making History, The Communication Cord, American Welcome, Three Sisters (after Chekhov), Translations, Aristocrats (Winner of the Evening Standard Award for Best Play and New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Foreign Play), Faith Healer, Fathers and Sons, Living Quarters, Volunteers, The Freedom of the City, The Gentle Island, The Mundy Scheme, Crystal and Fox, Lovers: Winners and Losers, The Loves of Cass Maguire, Philadelphia Here I Come!
Photo by Bobbie Hanvey

About the Director

Ian Rickson was the artistic director of the Royal Court from 1998 to 2006, where he directed The River (also Broadway), Jerusalem (also West End and Broadway), The Winterling, The Night Heron, and Mojo (also Chicago), all by Jez Butterworth; Not Not Not Not Not Enough Oxygen and This Is a Chair by Caryl Churchill; Dublin Carol and The Weir by Conor McPherson (also Dublin, Chicago, West End and Broadway); The Seagull by Anton Chekhov (also Broadway); Krapp’s Last Tape by Samuel Beckett; Alice Trilogy by Tom Murphy; The Sweetest Swing in Baseball and Boy Gets Girl by Rebecca Gilman; Fallout by Roy Williams; Mouth to Mouth by Kevin Elyot; The Lights by Howard Korder; Pale Horse and Some Voices by Joe Penhall; Ashes and Sand by Judy Upton; and Killers by Adam Pernak.
In the West End, Rickson has directed Uncle Vanya, The Birthday Party, Old Times, Betrayal, and The Children’s Hour (all at the Harold Pinter Theatre); Edward Albee’s The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? (Theatre Royal Haymarket); Rosmersholm (Duke of York’s Theatre); and at the National Theatre, Translations by Brian Friel, Evening at the Talk House by Wallace Shawn, The Red Lion by Patrick Marber, The Hothouse by Harold Pinter, and The Day I Stood Still by Kevin Elyot. Productions at the Old Vic include Electra by Sophocles. Productions at the Young Vic include The Nest, Now We Are Here, and Hamlet. Productions at the Almeida Theatre include Against by Christopher Shinn and Parlour Song by Jez Butterworth.
Work on-screen includes Fallout (Company Pictures for Channel 4) and Krapp’s Last Tape by Samuel Beckett (BBC4). Rickson also works with PJ Harvey and Kate Tempest on their music and poetry shows. Rickson has his own podcast, What I Love, for Storyglass.

About the Performer

Ciarán Hinds began his career at The Glasgow Citizens Theatre and was a member of the company for many years. In Ireland he has worked at the Lyric Theatre Belfast, the Druid Theatre in Galway, and at The Project. Extensive theater credits include Uncle Vanya at the Pinter Theatre; the National Theatre’s production of Brian Friel’s Translations; Nick in Conor McPherson’s The Girl from the North Country in the West End and The Old Vic; Lyndsey Turner’s Hamlet at the Barbican; Mark O’Rowe’s new play, Our Few and Evil Days, at The Abbey Theatre; Donmar Theatre and New York productions of Conor McPherson’s The Night Alive; on Broadway as Big Daddy in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin; and in a coproduction with the Royal National Theatre of Juno and the Paycock by Sean O’Casey, directed by Howard Davies.
For the Gate Theatre, he appeared in Conor McPherson’s The Birds, The Field Day Company’s version of Antigone, The School for Wives, and Brian Friel’s The Yalta Game.
He toured internationally with Peter Brook’s Company in The Mahabharata and has played leading roles at the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal Court, the Donmar Warehouse, and the National Theatre, where he last appeared in Burnt by the Sun and played Larry in Patrick Marber’s Closer, which transferred to Broadway. He also performed on Broadway in Conor McPherson’s The Seafarer.
Television credits include Mother Father Son, as John Franklin in The Terror, as Mance Rayder in Game of Thrones, as Bud Hammond in Political Animals, DCI Langton in Linda La Plante’s Above Suspicion, and as Julius Caesar in the BBC/HBO coproduction of Rome. This follows extensive television credits including leading roles in The Mayor of Casterbridge, Jane Eyre, Seaforth, Ivanhoe, Sherlock Holmes, Prime Suspect 3, and the award-winning film of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, in which he played Captain Wentworth.
Extensive film credits include Peter Greenaway’s The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, December Bride, Circle of Friends, Titanic Town, Some Mother’s Son, Oscar and Lucinda, The Lost Son, The Weight of Water and Mary Reilly; The Road to Perdition for Sam Mendes, The Sum of All Fears, Jonjo Mickybo, Calendar Girls, Lara Croft: The Cradle of Life, The Statement; Veronica Guerin and The Phantom of the Opera, both for Joel Schumacher, Miami Vice for Michael Mann; and Munich for Steven Spielberg; Amazing Grace for Michael Apted; Nativity for Catherine Hardwicke; Hallam Foe, A Tiger’s Tail, Excalibur for John Boorman; Margot at the Wedding for Noah Baumbach; There Will Be Blood for Paul Thomas Anderson; Stop Loss for Kimberly Pearce; In Bruges for Martin McDonagh; The Tale of Despereaux, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, Cash, Race to Witch Mountain, Conor McPherson’s The Eclipse, for which he won best actor at the Tribeca Film Festival; Life During Wartime, The Debt, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, John Carter of Mars, Salvation Boulevard, The Rite, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, The Woman in Black, Closed Circuit, The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby, The Sea, Frozen, Last Days in the Desert, Agent 47, The Driftless Area, Bleed for This; Silence for Martin Scorsese; Woman Walks Ahead, Red Sparrow, Justice League, First Man, The Man in the Hat, Frozen II, and Belfast.

About the Performer

Michelle Fairley was most recently seen playing the lead roles of Marion Wallace in Gangs of London for HBO/Sky Atlantic and Kerry Stephens in the BAFTA-nominated Responsible Child for the BBC, as well as starring in the BAFTA-nominated short film The Trap, directed by Lena Headey. She began her career in theater with stand-out performances in David Mamet’s Oleanna for the Royal Court, The Weir for the Royal Court and Broadway, and most recently Julius Caesar at the Bridge Theatre in London, for which she won the Clarence Derwent Award for her performance as Cassius. She was cast in HBO’s Game of Thrones as Catelyn Stark, a role for which she won an IFTA, after the writers saw her play Iago’s wife, Emilia, in Michael Grandage’s production of Othello at the Donmar Warehouse, and she received an Olivier Award nomination for Best Performance in a Supporting Role. Fairley has received critical acclaim for her diverse range of television appearances, including her portrayal of George Best’s mother, Ann, in the BBC drama Best: His Mother’s Son, her role as Dr. Ava Hessington in USA Network’s Suits, and her part as terrorist Margo Al-Harazi in Fox’s 24: Live Another Day. More recently, she has starred opposite Jodie Comer as the formidable Lady Margaret Beaufort in the BBC/Starz adaptation of Philippa Gregory’s The White Princess. Fairley has also appeared in numerous films, including Heart of the Sea and Philomena, and has just finished filming the lead role in the feature Wise Blood, due for release next year.

About the Performer

BAFTA Award-winning actor Toby Jones OBE is known for his roles both in theater and on-screen. He will soon return to BBC Two in the forthcoming compelling new factual drama, Danny Boy, directed by Sam Miller. He returned to the big screen in the critically acclaimed feature film First Cow, directed by Kelly Reichardt, from a screenplay by Reichardt and Jonathan Raymond based on Raymond's novel The Half Life. Additionally, Jones wrote and narrated Marcovaldo for BBC Radio 4.
In 2020, he returned to the stage at The Harold Pinter Theatre in Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, to high acclaim. His further notable roles and projects include Don’t Forget The Driver (2019), a series he cowrote for BBC 2, alongside Tim Crouch; Lionsgate’s World War I drama Journey’s End (2017); and ‎Infamous (2006), in which Jones played Truman Capote, for which he won Best British Actor at the London Film Critics Circle Awards. In 2011, he starred in the Oscar-nominated adaptation of John le Carre’s classic crime novel Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and the year after, he garnered huge critical acclaim for his performance as Alfred Hitchcock in the HBO/BBC television movie The Girl, for which he received BAFTA, Golden Globe and Emmy nominations. That year also saw Jones play the lead in Peter Strickland’s multi-award-winning film Berberian Sound Studio. In 2014, he starred as the lead in the BBC Two BAFTA-winning drama Marvellous, and the following year in Matteo Garrone’s fantasy horror, Tale of Tales.

What listeners say about Faith Healer

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    3 out of 5 stars

I wanted to like this

but I just could not. It was heavy, and monitone- not engaging at all.
I am familiar with the author's work which is what drew me to it in the first place

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

The performances were everything in this book!

I had such an enjoyable time listening to this book. Each actor did a stellar performance! I was captivated the whole way through. Not sure about the ending but it left me thinking. Great book!!

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

odd

This was an Odd story but , had striking characters. The voices told the story well.

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  • Overall
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a great book

Over all this was a great book, the voice actors were so moving i felt every word. Not a book to be sat on.

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5 people found this helpful

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A masterpiece

Stellar writing, performance, story, depth, and emotion. Captivating and haunting. Worth every minute. Will listen again.

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11 people found this helpful

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excellent..

fantastic character portrayal.. and a great presentation all round.
would recommend to any lover of human drama

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5 people found this helpful

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Riveting

Grabbed me and held on. I have loved these actors and was a joy to hear this amazing story told by them. Unforgettable. A must listen.

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Disappointing

Disappointing that he turned into a drunker. And only to the end did he realize could of moved mountains.
Devil ruled, I only kept listening in hopes it would change, shows you when you get a gift. You don’t loose it. A failed destiny!

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excellent

This is a tour de force story, performance and production . Works very well as an audiobook.

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13 people found this helpful

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Wow. Wow. Wow.

Now this is writing! Imagine an incredibly interesting story performed by true artists and you’ve got Faith Healer. Excellent, highly recommend.

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9 people found this helpful