At 46, Dubliner Colm (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor) has a comfortable life: a managerial job in the city’s docks; a home in a leafy suburb with two healthy teenage children; and a kind loyal wife, Claire (Monica Dolan). But his emotional and financial stability is threatened when his destructive, alcoholic father dies; his workplace undergoes a foreign takeover and he is made redundant after 30 years of service. Drinking heavily and unable to confide in Claire, he is drawn again and again to Jay (Tom Glynn-Carney) a 19 year old who dabbles in prostitution. Their sexual encounters and tentative friendship become Colm’s only solace in his increasingly fraught life.

Rialto explores grief, fatherhood, masculinity, and the complexity of loving relationships in this taut, unpredictable drama directed by Peter Mackie Burns (Daphne) and based on a screenplay by Mark O’Halloran (Adam & Paul, Garage) – with a riveting central performance by Vaughan-Lawlor (Love/Hate, Maze).