The Monthly talks to Liam Kelly and Pamela Brown about their script, “The Magilligan Suitcase” – Part 1 – Telling a story which needed to be told

How did you meet and how does that turn into a writing partnership?

Pamela Brown

We started off when I did some mentoring with Liam, working on creative writing, while he was in prison and after release. Now myself and Liam have a long working relationship and Liam is a colleague through Prison Arts Foundation.

Liam Kelly

I am an ex-prisoner and, as she said, I met Pamela while I was in jail.

How do you decide to write a script?

Pamela Brown

Our main character Budgie is a composite of many men, younger and older men, who we meet when we conduct creative writing classes. We felt there was a story here that was so compelling that it had to be written. It is about prisoners being released into society and the difficulties they face.

The North is one of the only places which releases prisoners over the weekend, so, if they don’t have a family to go back to or a base camp of some kind, they are effectively made homeless, and without any photographic identification this is even more difficult.

This is not a new story it’s an old story, but it is a story which really hasn’t been told and very few people know about it.

Liam Kelly

We run a creative writing class twice a month in the Support Hub in Belfast, and what we are writing about is repeating what we see and hear from the participants, as well as from personal experience. They tell us what is happening and it’s happening now.

They get released from prison on a Friday and by the time they sort out everything with the police and Probation everywhere is closed. They can’t find somewhere to stay, and they are effectively homeless until Monday. And what happens to a lot of them is that when they can’t sort anything out, they end up back in prison.What do you think the reason for this is?

Pamela Brown

You hear frequently about it in the news that ex-prisoners are being recalled to jail, that they return to committing crime, that they were always the bad person, that they cannot be rehabilitated. What you don’t hear about is the situation they are left in once they are released. It is that situation which contributes to many people being returned back to prison

Liam Kelly

Some people are fighting addictions, some don’t have any family, there is a lack of support, some just can’t sort themselves out for any number of reasons, such as mental health and yet alone that there is very little in the way of help for ex-prisoners after release and they are often left to their own devices on the streets.

So, you decided to write a script?

Pamela Brown

We had written a stage play together last year and I think through that process we had some idea that there was a story to tell that maybe should be a little more ambitious. Through that process we were always talking about characters, about what kind of characters would end up in the play, and I think that just naturally lead to working on a film script.

Liam Kelly

Once we started with the everyman character, “Budgie” who, like Pamela said, was a bringing together of all sorts of prisoners and former prisoners we had met along the way, once we started to tell Budgie’s story we needed to add in paramilitaries, drug dealers, police, and other characters that make up the tragic story of reoffending and relapsing.

I have been on all sides of this situation. I have been in prison, and I have been an addict living on the streets. I also became a dealer because I thought that way I could get money to get my own drugs, so I have experienced all these types of situations. I know the kind of people who will take advantage of the homeless because to them they just want money. They don’t care about the situation the people who are homeless are in. I was able to discuss the various situations with Pamela, and we made sure that what we were writing was heartfelt, accurate and authentic.