Reviews

Hostel by Fionnuala Kennedy

Reviewed by Lisa Fitzpatrick on 26 January 2012 20-27 January, 2012 (on tour) in The Playhouse, Derry

Hostel, written and directed by Fionnuala Kennedy, is a short but vivid performance that explores the plight of young women in a homeless hostel in Belfast. The work was first performed for two nights during the Belfast Fringe Festival before Kabosh decided to take it on tour as part of their social...

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Hollywood Valhalla by Aidan Harney

Reviewed by Harvey O'Brien on 25 January 2012 25 Jan - 11 Feb, 2012 in Bewley’s Café Theatre

Aidan Harney’s play examines a decisive moment in the life of Rock Hudson, the 1950s Hollywood heartthrob who became something more than just an icon in his final days by publicly acknowledging that he had AIDS. Hudson’s sexuality had been an open secret, carefully controlled to preserve...

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The Family by THEATREclub

Reviewed by Jennifer Lee on 20 January 2012 17 – 28 Jan, 2012 in Project Arts Centre

How do you solve a problem like The Family? Make a cup of tea, of course. But there comes a time when even that – our nation’s reflex action to anything remotely real – becomes an impossible task. Behind the whiter-than-white picket fence perfection cracks appear, holes show, the...

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Our New Girl by Nancy Harris

Reviewed by Fintan Walsh on 17 January 2012 17 Jan - 11 Feb, 2012 in The Bush Theatre, London

What do you give the woman who has it all – a beautiful London home; a handsome, plastic surgeon for a husband; and a healthy eight year old son, with another child on the way? A nanny, if you’re Hazel Robinson’s (Fleetwood) husband Mark (Bazeley), who sends Annie (Gough) from Sligo...

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The Kreutzer Sonata by Nancy Harris, adapted from the novella by Leo Tolstoy

Reviewed by Karen Fricker on 11 January 2012 6 Jan - 18 Feb, 2012 in Gate Theatre, Notting Hill

Either by twist of programming fate or design, Irish playwright Nancy Harris is making a splash on the London theatre scene in early 2012. At the same time as her new play Our New Girl premieres at the Bush Theatre, her adaptation of Tolstoy's notorious novella The Kreutzer Sonata is being revived at...

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Minute After Midday by Ross Dungan

Reviewed by Jane Coyle on 10 January 2012 10 January 2011 in The Black Box, Belfast

It’s a bright, sunny morning in a busy market town in County Tyrone. As midday approaches, a young girl and her mother set out on a shopping trip for a special birthday present; a man sneaks his wife’s wicker basket into the back of his car and heads off to watch a GAA match in a local bar;...

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Those Sick and Indigent by Alan O'Regan

Reviewed by Jesse Weaver on 09 January 2012 9 - 21 January, 2012 in Bewleys Café Theatre

We’ll all die with secrets, every one of us. Despite the papers, the clothes, the objects we leave behind that map out a life lived, gaps in our personal narratives will persist. This is the reality of our lives and deaths: everything that we are is guaranteed to dissipate after we die, as the...

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Gibraltar: An adaptation after James Joyce's Ulysses by Patrick Fitzgerald

Reviewed by Derek West on 09 January 2012 1 - 14 January, 2011 in The New Theatre

‘The book called the most important of the preceding hundred years is also notorious for its inability to be read without special help’ – Julie Sloan Brannon, Who reads ‘Ulysses’? (Routledge, 2003) It's interesting to Google ‘readership Ulysses’ and find entries...

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The Rainbow's End by Ofegus Theatre

Reviewed by Derek West on 29 December 2011 28 Dec - 4 January, 2011 in Mill Theatre

When The Rainbow’s End acts up as a panto, it almost succeeds. That’s in the latter stages of the piece when the familiar elements – “He’s behind you!”, cross-dressing handsome hunk, swashbuckling Principal Boy, knockabout comic duo, appeals to the audience for assistance...

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Sétanta by Paul Mercier

Reviewed by Ruth Kennedy on 06 December 2011 6 - 10 December, 2011 in Peacock Theatre

Imagine the Rubber Bandits in a cage fight somewhere in the middle of Afghanistan and you come close to getting the concept for this show. Muscular wrestlers in latex masks command the stage with explosive energy, circling each other like fighting dogs, roaring and trash-talking. Paul Mercier and Fibín...

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