Raymond Keane (Irish actor)

Raymond Keane is an Irish actor, clown, puppeteer and theatre writer and producer, known for founding the Barabbas Theatre Company in Temple Bar, Dublin.^[1][2][3]

Keane was the voice of the puppet Pajo, from RTÉ One's Pajo's Junkbox, a children's TV show, also starring Rosemary Henderson.^[1] Keane, as Pajo, topped the Irish charts with "Let's Wash our Socks for Christmas" novelty record,^[4][5] returning to the charts in December 2014, as part of The Zog Chorus, a group of puppets from RTÉ Young People's Programming from the 80's and 90's, Zig and Zag, Bosco, and Dustin the Turkey, recording a charity single in aid of Childline.^[6] In 1999 Keane portrayed a dying character on soap opera Fair City,^[7] In 2014, Keane performed a series of Samuel Beckett plays in 14 Henrietta Street,^[8] having performed site-specific performances of the playwright's work across Dublin city in 2009.^[9]

In 2007, he produced Circus, inspired by Fellini's La Strada, in the Project Arts Centre with Barabbas.^[10]

In 2021 Keane was nominated along with Sarah Jane Scaife as Irish Theatre Awards Best Director for The Long Christmas Dinner, in the Abbey Theatre.^[11]

In 2024, Keane directed a cast of actors with disabilities in Christian O'Reilly's No Magic Pill for Magic Pill.^[12] In 2025, he played a masked character in Brú Theatre's production of Not a Word at the Barbican in London as part of MimeLondon.^[13]

Keane is an adjunct professor at Trinity College Dublin's School for the Creative Arts,^[14] and a clown specialist at the Gaiety School of Acting.^[15]