THEY MAY literally be a captive audience, but the inmates of Cork Prison had an even more instrumental role in providing playwright Liam Heylin with some of the insights he captures in Love, Peace and Robbery , which plays at the jail next month.

A court reporter by day with the Irish Examiner , Cork-based Heylin has always had an interest in drama and found that through his work he was constantly glimpsing aspects of human experience that didn't fit into the requirements of news reporting.

"Covering thousands of cases, I was seeing things that didn't hit the radar in terms of news reporting but were visible there on the sidelines - maybe a girlfriend and a child in court waiting to see the outcome, so I had plenty of material from that.

"And then I interviewed guys who were in or had been in prison - I knew it was kind of obvious that they wanted to turn their lives around, but talking to them gave me an insight into the buzz they got when they were really flying on the criminal front."

The result is a dark comedy that charts the dilemma faced by an ex-prisoner torn between trying to go straight and trying to bond with his partner's son through funding a trip for the boy with his soccer club to see Manchester United at Old Trafford.

The play premiered in 2007 in Cork, was performed last year in both New York and Washington by the Keegan Company, and is now going on a national tour in Ireland, starting last night with a three-day run at the Triskel Arts Centre in Cork.

The Meridian Theatre Company production, starring Shane Casey, John Desmond and Aidan O'Hare, will play venues countrywide.