Maev Mac Coille

I have a play reading on 15 October, and, as is the way of all playwrights, I must devote my social media accounts to ruthless self-promotion. Please come and hear my first science-fiction play, and then tell me what you think (nicely). Tickets here: lambethfringe.com/events/a-lie-a…

So it turns out I’m just as cowardly about jump scares in the theatre as the cinema. It was really well done, but maybe horror theatre isn’t for me.

Nothing like a pack of (Nordie) Tayto before a show. I have never been so pleased by a pre-theatre snack.

Trying to decide how annoyed I should be when The Secret Agent - the actual best film of the year (and it isn’t close) - is totally ignored by the Oscars…

I get that the phrase “Irish goodbye” has taken on a life of its own, but an actual Irish person will still be at the party, maybe with their coat on, like an hour after they first said goodbye

“Unwittingly, he trained a dolphin to kill the President of the United States” is the tagline for Day of the Dolphin, an actual film that was made by actual human beings, in the year of our Lord 1973. I can’t decide if I must see it without delay, or if that would only spoil it

Oh, LinkedIn, thanks ever so, but I think not.

I do appreciate when filmmakers acknowledge that the female gaze exists… But I can’t help it - it takes me out of the story when an adult man on a starvation diet has biceps the size of my neck.

Eventually, being weak, I crack, and start asking questions…which makes me feel like I’m some kind of sinister interrogator.

Have people got worse at making phone calls since the pandemic? More and more, I pick up the work phone to people who introduce themselves with: “Hello.” That’s it. Not a hint of who they are or why they’re calling, just “Hello” and a dead silence.

There are many things about Americans I like - their instant friendliness, their cooked breakfasts, Grand Central Station - but every time I hear the…Atrocity that is their pronunciation of the word croissant, I mentally start humming La Marseillaise.

*I always have mixed feelings about plays that revolve around men who just ‘happen’ to have young girls fall in love with them out of no where - and sadly there are a lot of them. Tom Stoppard - the King of fuck boy playwrights

A sensitive, nuanced, gorgeous production of Arcadia, a play that I love (with reservations*). Go see it as soon as you can. Your brain will melt and your heart will break.

On the one hand, I still dislike these LED tube things - well, I dislike that they seem to be used in every second big house theatre production at the moment. On the other hand - at least this time they’re not being used to create the illusion we’re watching a flatscreen TV?

For the third time in my life, I have a neighbour who plays the double bass. I had no idea it was so popular. And I still feel really silly when a musical instrument is taller than me.

We love them, but cats are demons.

@FormerlyIr It is truly bizarre. I’ve encountered some intense ship wars in fandoms before, but never when all the ships involved got to be endgame pairings. I’m perpetually baffled by it.

Every time I interact with the Bridgerton fandom I am always so disturbed that so much of their efforts are in tearing other (non-competing) ships down? Like why does your fav’s in laws matter— that you gotta tear it down as if it’s your sole focus?

Jesus, J.R.R. Tolkein was a real party animal.

I take no leave of you, 2025. I send no compliments to your mother. You deserve no such attention. I am most seriously displeased.

My reflections on what I saw at the theatre this year (and some thoughts on the less than inspiring state of London theatre right now). thebookofmaev.wordpress.com/2025/12/31/202…

Rear Window is a perfect movie, but I will never not be annoyed by the sheer audacity of Jimmy Stewart acting like Grace Kelly isn’t good enough for him.