Madame Geneva - a smouldering tale of the influence of gin (Lyric Theatre until Sunday 28 May)

Small theatre companies are producing some of the most exciting new work in Belfast at the moment. Fresh from Entitled, their sharply political critique of the welfare system, the company are back with Jo Egan’s tale of gin and prostitution, Madame Geneva based in the late seventeenth century and eighteenth century.

The ambitious show starts with a raucous musical number with much bodice tightening and rubbing of thighs as we are introduced to the so-called fallen women who are targeted (while men are overlooked) for virtue restoration having fallen for the evil charms of the devil’s drink which had recently arrived from Holland.

The action then bounces across to four men representing the reform movement who seek to eradicate gin – nicknamed Madame Geneva – from the streets of London and beyond, and plan to open the Magdalen Home for Penitent Prostitutes to teach “the habit of hard work”.

Alternating between the spoken word of stately figures of the patriarchy who are fond of a tipple and the musical expression of the poor, the show breezes through 60 years of history. Along the way we learn about the creation of the Bank of England to raise funds to create a permanent navy, witness the flip flopping government policies to encourage gin production (and benefit the MPs who own much of the farm land) and then prohibit its consumption, and hear how the Magdalen system was exported to Ireland.

Kerri Quinn pours everything into her on-stage personification of Madame Geneva, delivering a smouldering performance of speech, dance and song while rarely leaving the stage.

Tony Flynn brings gravitas and guile to his roles as Robert Dingley and William III. Rhys Dunlop impresses as artist William Hogarth (whose Gin Lane print adorns the cover of the Madame Geneva programme). Keith Singleton injects large measures of humour into the otherwise serious conversations as he plays a series of up-tight gentlemen. Guided by director Cara Kelly, the MACHA Community Company add another 12 bodies to the theatrical melee with some very confident performances, particularly from Andrew McClay.

The set is simple but effective, creating a gilded frame around which the audience sit in tiered banks along the two long sides of the floor-level stage. New groups of historical characters step out of a smaller framed door at one end.

The gin-fuelled rave is a suitably comedic anachronism. The image of an orange towel-clad, shiny-chested William of Orange discussing politics in a sauna will be burnt into the retinas of everyone in the audience. And the anthropomorphisation of the juniper berry drink as a banshee dressed up in evening attire least likely to be chosen as prom queen adds a real punch to proceedings.

I don’t easily warm to historical theatre. Much of the 1916-related drama has been hard to believe. But Madame Geneva creates an exciting combination of prose, poetry and song on top of Garth McConaghie’s soundtrack, Lisa Dunne’s intricate costumes and the enthusiastic contribution of the Community Company. The issues it raises – from attitudes to women and sex to taxation – are very contemporary. Definitely in my top three pieces of theatre seen in the last six months.

Madame Geneva is being performed in the Lyric Theatre until Sunday 28 May. Check out the Lyric’s website for details of after show discussions about prostitution in NI, addiction, the media and government use of sexual violence against women in the context of welfare reform.