Sam Thompson, a Northern Irish playwright best known for documenting sectarian violence in his works, penned the controversial but ground-breaking Over The Bridge in 1958. The play charts the tragic course of a sectarian dispute in the shipyard.

A decade before the Lyric production, this play caused one of the major upsets in Northern Irish history, when the Ulster Group Theatre refused to produce it without major rewrites by Thompson.  Feeling that this would fundamentally weaken the message of the play, the playwright refused. What followed is the stuff of theatrical legend: the great James Ellis led a band of actors who broke from the Group, forming their own troupe, Bridge Productions, and staged the play themselves at the Empire Theatre. It was a runaway success, attracting an audience of shipyard workers who had never in their lives experienced stage before. This Lyric production saw the role of Nellie Mitchell reprised by Catherine Gibson. The Lyric would remain committed to this radical Belfast playwright with another production of Over The Bridge in 1990 and 1991.