Gerry Farrell prescribes a healthy dose of laughter with H.O.Q.I.A.

WHEN the H.O.Q.I.A. inspector arrives, the nurses go into panic mode to make a good impression. But from the very beginning, things go wrong, and what unfolds is a hilarious series of mishaps, mistakes, and ridiculous encounters and situations.

Audiences can expect some “real laugh-out-loud fun” as bureaucracy competes with real care, and staff feel hard done by.

‘H.O.Q.I.A: Heck of a Quality Inspection Assured’ is a great evening of laughter and fun, particularly for anyone used to workplace audits.

But underlying all the fun, there is some food for thought and reflection. An affirmation of hard-working healthcare staff as well as a satire on current health audits, this “farce” promises to entertain and cause pause for reflection in equal measure.

This week, The Echo sat down with playwright and actor Gerry Farrell to discuss ‘H.O.Q.I.A.’, which performs in the Civic Theatre on July 25 at 7:30pm; booking details are available on the Civic website.

What can you tell us about ‘H.O.Q.I.A.’?

‘H.O.Q.I.A.: Heck Of A Quality Inspection Assured’ is a laugh-out-loud comedy about what happens when a group of nurses are trying to cope with an on-the-spot inspection of their care facility.

Everything goes wrong for the staff while they are trying to make a good impression.

Mistaken identity, cover-ups and bureaucracy all come together in this hilarious celebration of the nursing and caring professions.

What inspired this story?

Inspired by years of working with nurses and care staff as colleagues, it is a dream come true for me to bring my fifty-three years of experience working in the theatre, both as author and actor, to the profession where I started out – nursing.

Following the success of my most recent play, ‘I Had to go For Counselling’, which played to sold-out theatres around Ireland and is due a more extensive tour in the Spring of 2027, I reflect on the truism that a person should only write what they know about intimately.

My first inclination that the script for ‘H.O.Q.I.A’ would work came when I assembled the team of actors together, who, apart from me, had no experience of the nursing profession.

They laughed and laughed as they did their first blind reading of the play.

They observed that the same dynamics are seen in people who work in restaurants, shops, offices, and any form of work, really – the bitching, the cliques, the lazy colleagues and the pedantic rule-based ones…oh, the lot.

What have been some of the biggest challenges you have faced so far in this production, and how have you navigated them?

We have had challenges, of course.

We were all set for our first two SOLD OUT performances in the Dock in Carrick-on-Shannon when our leading lady, just days from the first performance, had a serious horse-riding accident and is lucky to be still with us.

We had to cancel, and plans to reschedule those two performances are still in the pipeline.

But true to form, the actress Maggie Villarini, both metaphorically and actually, got back up on the horse and has postponed surgery she needs until after the tour is complete.

What has been your favourite part of working on this production so far and why?

What I am really excited about is that I get to share the stage with my two daughters, Rachel and Becky; the former plays the H.O.Q.I.A. inspector and loves the part.

I better not say a lot about the part my other daughter Becky plays in ‘H.O.Q.I.A.’, or I might give too much away, but suffice it to say, if her sister plays the pedantic inspector, Becky takes the very opposite role.

Who would you like to thank for helping to make this production possible?

Of course it is impossible to mount a production like this without an awful lot of good will and hard work by a lot of people.

I must say the theatres have been; of course, some of them knew me from previous productions, and so agreeing to stage the play was not a great risk.

But some, like the Civic Theatre, while I would have played there many times with the BEEZNEEZ theatre company, I had never staged a production of my own in the Civic. Yet they were enthusiastic from the beginning.

Niamh and Sandra and all the team there are very hard-working and encouraging.

I also have to talk about my stage manager, Noel O’Callaghan, and the backstage crew, including my lighting and sound person, Alan Dunne.

After 53 years of acting on stage, I continue to be in awe of the work of backstage people who never get the adulation the rest of us experience with standing ovations, etc.

Frankly this play would not have got to performance without the incredible work of Noel O Callaghan.

He built the set and spent hours on his own in a cold shed putting it together and painting it.

He ran around the place gathering props as well as the rehearsal work of prompting and noting directions for blocking.

He sometimes reluctantly made direction suggestions, and I am so glad he did because they have proved very valuable.