Luck Penny by Aisling Foster at Lion & Unicorn Theatre

Luck Penny, a new play by Aisling Foster, at the Lion and Unicorn Theatre, a 60-seat fringe venue in Kentish Town, north London, from 11 June to 8 July 2013.

Directed by Cherry Cookson, cast includes Sheila Ruskin (Mrs Audrey Francis), Peter Dineen (Dr Brendan Regan), Howard Lee (Anton), Mark Straker (Dimitri), Holly Morgan (Irma).

Moscow 1948. Dr Brendan Regan, old friend of Eamon deValera, is on a secret mission to return some Russian Crown Jewels.The jewels had been taken back to Ireland by deValera in 1920 as collateral for a loan he made to a small party of Bolsheviks who were travelling around the United States trying to raise funds for postrevolutionary Russia. The Irish revolutionaries were on the same assignment. They raised many millions of dollars while the Russians collected almost nothing. At the end of the Second World War, both their governments are poles apart, making the friendship and loan an enormous political embarrassment for both sides.

This play is based on real events. Official papers documenting the return of the jewels were released by the Dublin government in 1993.

- by Darren Dalglish