Liam Neeson and Gabriel Byrne are to team up to bring a controversial one-man play about sex abuse to Off-Broadway.

It is believed to be the first time Ireland’s two most prominent actors in America have co-operated on a project.

‘James X’, written by actor and playwright Mannix Flynn will begin previews on December 6th at the Bleecker Theater and will officially open December 9th.

The play is about a man waiting to give evidence to a sex abuse inquiry about what he suffered in his past.

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It will be directed by Byrne and produced by Byrne and Neeson  for the Culture Project, a New York- organization whose work focuses on human rights.

The play will deal with church abuse but also with the dreadful treatment of children in the state run reformatory or industrial schools

Flynn, now an elected city councilor in Dublin, spent several years in a reformatory school. Part of the play features photocopied documents taken from his own personal file at Ireland’s Department of Health, dating from age 7.

Flynn  was born in Dublin in May 1957. He was sent to industrial school at age 11 and was subjected to sexual and physical violence there.