What happens when two overworked and underpaid community carers in Northern Ireland discover their elderly client has died on the same day his pension arrives — and he has also placed a winning bet on the horses?
That’s the premise behind playwright Marie Jones’ dark comedy Fly Me to the Moon, which runs for 10 performances at Globus Theatre at 2300 Pigeon Lake Road in Bobcaygeon from Wednesday, August 5 to Saturday, August 15.
The production stars Sarah Evans and Belfast-born actor Melee Hutton as Loretta and Francis, two women who have spent much of their lives caring for other people while receiving little money or recognition in return.
Hutton’s Northern Irish roots bring an added air of authenticity to the Belfast-set comedy, which combines rapid-fire dialogue, colourful language, and dark humour from the distinctive wit of Jones, the acclaimed Northern Ireland playwright behind Stones in His Pockets.
Fly Me to the Moon begins with Loretta and Francis arriving at the home of their 84-year-old client Davey, a fan of Frank Sinatra, on pension day. When they discover he has died, the two women consider whether they should claim his pension for themselves. Their seemingly simple plan grows more complicated when they learn Davey also placed a winning bet on a horse that he didn’t have a chance to collect.
What follows is a fast-moving farce about friendship, desperation, temptation, and what can happen when people who have long felt unappreciated suddenly see an opportunity to turn lemons into lemonade.
“Marie Jones writes about ‘two nobodies, just going along their day,'” Evans says in a media release. “That single line, in a nutshell, is what grabbed my heart and imagination when I read this play.”
“Two nobodies. Two people who have, as it were, been written off. The shenanigans Francis and Loretta get themselves into to get a wee taste of freedom and adventure leads to a deeper friendship forged through fire.”
Although Fly Me to the Moon uses an increasingly improbable series of predicaments to generate laughs, the play touches upon the serious issues of the low wages and difficult working conditions of those who care for the elderly.
It also asks us to consider what we might do if offered an opportunity to make our lives better through a victimless crime.
Both Evans and Hutton are already familiar with the play and each other’s performances, having played Loretta and Francis in a February 2025 production by Shillelagh Theatre Company at Toronto’s Red Sandcastle Theatre.
According to Evans, the audience response to the Toronto run “was electric,” particularly from those with connections to Northern Ireland.
“We had several people originally from Belfast come to see the show, and they all felt as though they had been transported back home to a world they knew.”
“The dark humour and insane predicaments in which Marie Jones places her characters is not only funny and moving, but highly relatable,” Evans adds. “It raises the question, ‘What would I do if I were faced with these temptations?'”
As for the Belfast-born Hutton, she trained at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland before building a stage career in the United Kingdom and Canada.
Her UK credits include appearances at London’s Royal Court Theatre in Gibraltar Strait, Weldon Rising, and Disappeared, as well as the Royal National Theatre production of Juno and the Paycock. She has also appeared in West End productions of Popcorn and Our Country’s Good.
In Canada, Hutton’s theatre credits include Cymbeline with Shakespeare in the Ruff, Shakuntala with Pleiades Theatre, Blithe Spirit and The Miser at Sudbury Theatre Centre, and The Seagull and The Brothers Karamazov with Wordsmyth Theatre.
She received the London New Play Festival’s best actor award for her performance as Julie in Julie Johnson and was nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore Award for her performance as Dimitri in The Brothers Karamazov. She has also received a Dora nomination for directing Harold Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter.
Her television and film credits include North of North, The Ninth, Murdoch Mysteries, Flashpoint, Casualty, Love and Savagery, Kill Order, and PSI Factor.
Meanwhile, Evans holds a bachelor of fine arts in acting from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and a master of fine arts in acting from York University. She also trained with the Moscow Art Theatre School through the British American Drama Academy at Oxford University.
She began her professional career in London, England, appearing as Liza in Vassa Zheleznova at the Gate Theatre and Dunyasha in The Cherry Orchard at the Welsh National Theatre.
Her extensive stage credits include Pygmalion with the Classic Theatre Festival, Prairie Nurse at Station Arts Centre, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie at the Stratford Festival, A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Canadian Stage, Death of a Salesman at Theatre Aquarius, Steel Magnolias at Theatre New Brunswick and the Stirling Festival Theatre, and Waiting for the Parade at the Georgian Theatre Festival.
Evans received an outstanding performance award from NOW Magazine for her work in Cancer Time. Her screen credits include Hannibal, Murdoch Mysteries, Chucky, Orphan Black, Brilliant Minds, Say Yes to Christmas, Da Vinci’s Inquest, and ReGenesis.
She is also a guest lecturer in communication studies at the University of Waterloo and a studio instructor at York University.
Jones is one of Northern Ireland’s most internationally successful playwrights, with work that has been staged throughout Ireland and Britain as well as across Europe, Canada, the United States, and the former Soviet Union.
Her best-known play, Stones in His Pockets, follows two extras working on a Hollywood film being shot in rural Ireland. The comedy enjoyed a four-year run in London’s West End, received the Laurence Olivier Award for best new comedy and the Evening Standard Award for best new play, and earned three Tony Award nominations following its Broadway debut.
Jones’ other works include A Night in November, Women on the Verge of HRT, an adaptation of Nikolai Gogol’s The Government Inspector, and the Martin Lynch collaborations Dancing Shoes, about Belfast soccer legend George Best, and The Miami Showband Story.
Her plays have been translated into 38 languages. Jones has received honorary doctorates of literature from Queen’s University Belfast and Ulster University and was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire.
Jones originally wrote Fly Me to the Moon as a one-act lunchtime production for Òran Mór and Paines Plough’s A Play, A Pie and A Pint series, which was presented at Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre in 2010. Jones later expanded it into a full-length play, which received a well-received run during the 2012 edition of the 1st Irish theatre festival in New York City.
The Globus Theatre production of Fly Me to the Moon runs for 10 performances Wednesdays to Saturdays from August 5 to 15, with 8 p.m. evening performances from August 5 to 8 and 12 to 15 and 2 p.m. matinee performances on August 8 and 13. An optional dinner is available before evening performances.
Tickets are $50 for the show only or $100 for dinner and the show, and are available at www.globustheatre.com.
Globus Theatre notes the play contains “a fair bit of colourful language — but in a lovely accent.”
