Nuala McKeever (born 1964) is an actress from Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Nuala McKeever | |
---|---|
Born | 1964 (age 59–60) |
Alma mater | Queen's University Belfast |
Occupation | Comic actress |
Partner | Mike Moloney (? - 2013) |
Early life and education
editMcKeever grew up in the west of the city and graduated from Queen's University Belfast with a degree in languages.[citation needed]
Career
editAfter graduating from university, McKeever worked at BBC Northern Ireland for eight years, initially as a secretary before becoming a researcher.[citation needed]
One of the first projects she worked on after quitting her research job was The Wilsons, for BBC Radio Ulster.[clarification needed]
This was followed by an appearance in Two Ceasefires and a Wedding (1995), a short film made for the BBC by the Northern Irish comedy group Hole in the Wall Gang.[1] The resulting comedy television series Give My Head Peace made McKeever a household name in Northern Ireland. She played the character "Emer" for two series.[2]
After leaving Give My Head Peace, she was hired by UTV. Here she wrote and produced McKeever, a sketch show.
Her first play, Out of The Box, directed by Andrea Montgomery, premiered at the Belfast Festival at Queen's in October 2005, and subsequently was performed at the Riverside Theatre, Coleraine at the University of Ulster and at the Lyric Theatre in Belfast in April 2006.[3] The play toured across Ireland before closing with a week as the first production in the new Grand Opera House Studio in Belfast in December 2006.
Subsequently, McKeever and Montgomery produced It's Not All Rain & Potatoes,[4] a sketch comedy about Ireland for Terra Nova Productions, and Is It Me?,[5] a sitcom for BBC Northern Ireland.
Personal life
editHer long-term partner Australian-born Mike Moloney died at his north Belfast home in April 2013.[6]
In 2014 she came out as a lesbian in her newspaper column.[7]
On 25 May 2020 she was presenting BBC Radio Ulster and without her knowledge that her microphone had been left on she said regarding Prime Minister Johnson's top aid Dominic Cummings “I was thinking he was such a dick I had written his name down as Richard Cummings”[8] which was broadcast over the airwaves, The BBC told the Belfast Telegraph “the comments were not intended for broadcast and should not have been… We very much regret what happened and the upset caused.”
McKeever has been a vegetarian since she was 16.[9]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ "Two Ceasefires And A Wedding". bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 30 January 2023.
- ^ Falvey, Deirdre. "Double Troubles". The Irish Times. Retrieved 11 February 2020.
- ^ McKeever, Nuala (29 October 2006). "One Minute There Are No Women from West Belfast on TV ...". The Guardian. Retrieved 27 September 2013.
- ^ "It's Not All Rain & Potatoes - 2007". Terra Nova Productions. Retrieved 11 February 2020.
- ^ "Nuala McKeever: I'm starting to live again, six years after my partner died". Retrieved 11 February 2020 – via PressReader.
- ^ Sweeney, Joanne (24 April 2017). "Funnywoman Nuala McKeever on life's ups and downs". The Irish News. Retrieved 11 February 2020.
- ^ Beattie, Jilly (6 May 2014). "TV star Nuala McKeever comes out as lesbian". Irish Mirror. Retrieved 10 August 2021.
- ^ Zorzut, Adrian. "BBC presenter calls Dominic Cummings 'such a dick' on-air". The New European. Archived from the original on 19 June 2020. Retrieved 8 September 2020.
- ^ 'I became a vegetarian at 16, but I like the idea of being a vegan and saving the lives of even more animals'. belfasttelegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 30 January 2023.