Most amateur plays come to an end after about three performances, but when Midwest Radio’s Tommy Marren put pen to paper to write his second play, he was in it for the long haul.

After nearly 200 performances of the three-act play It’s The Real McCoy across Ireland in two years, as well as shows in Chicago and Milwaukee and three sell-out nights in Dublin’s Olympia, it’s fair to say he achieved his goal with his drama group The Crokey Players.

“I’ll always remember when we performed it for the first time to a test audience of 40 people in our local community centre. It was on the 28 December 2012 and when we finished they all applauded. I didn’t expect that kind of reaction at all,” Tommy says.

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“But then we went on the road with it and it was the same reaction every time, except there were 300, 400 or 500 people in the theatres.”

The story of the play reads like a drama, but in the telling it is full of laughs.

Set in rural Ireland in 1964, the main character Madge Molloy is a bitter and tough woman, angry at the fact that her husband soon disappeared after they married 40 years ago, just before she found out she was pregnant.

She had to raise their daughter alone and without any answer as to her husband’s whereabouts. With nosy neighbours to contend with and a gormless postman struggling to build up the courage to ask for her daughter’s hand in marriage, Madge has enough on her plate when a priest, played by Tommy, shows up at her door with unexpected news.

“The real success of the play is that everyone, no matter what part of the country they are from, can identify with these characters. We all know someone who’s as tough as Madge or as nosy as Nora O’Hora,” Tommy explains.

A unique comedic element of the play is the use of old Irish sayings in the script, which are what inspired Tommy to write the play.

“I grew up in Tubbercurry and had lots of older neighbours. Telling stories was their way of entertaining themselves. They used really colourful language and sayings like: ‘What’s in the dog always comes out in the pup.’

“They formed the basis for the script and there are about 300 laughs in the play.”

Of course, taking an amateur play around the country still isn’t easy, and Tommy explains that convincing theatres was a tough task.

“When we approached them they would say: ‘But you’re unknown – how are you going to promote this?’ But word of mouth is a fantastic tool, and we also put a fair bit of money into advertising on local radio.”

The group also purchased their own van to transport the set from location to location and handle all their own bookings and promotion. For a local play to take on the challenge of going national, Tommy warns it’s about commitment.

“There are so many people in amateur groups around the country who go into plays and they put five months of work in hard rehearsals and they do three performances and then it’s all over. I know so many actors who find that soul-destroying, but at the same time people have lives and can’t do the commitment.”

Now It’s The Real McCoy is coming to an end, finishing its run this May.

“We decided it was time to move on, as at this stage we know each other’s lines back to front. I’m trying to get my head around another play at the moment, to have something on stage for January 2016.”

Visit www.crokeyplays.com for performance details in Galway, Tralee, Sligo, Athlone, Clare, Cashel and Limerick.