The Belfast Ensemble's triptych of work - Usher, Catherine and Lunaria - a celebration of quality and perseverance (Lyric Theatre, 28-30 June)

Belfast Ensemble’s weekend ‘Bash’ is a bit like having enjoyed a few episodes of a new programme and then sitting down to binge watch the boxset, with the added bonus of a new episode revealed at the end. It’s very satisfying to nestle into your theatre seat and let the performances challenge your senses and explore your mind, even if the dark themes of chaos and white noise pervade the two and a half hours of entertainment.

Never content to sit on their laurels and rehash an old production, Conor Mitchell and his assembled masters of musical theatre have restaged and further refined two of their previous works.

The House of Usher (reviewed with a longer title this time last year) introduces the notion that life is out of control with its heavily raked set. Convention is broken with the silhouette of a dark figure pacing around the lit floor, his eyes and mouth mostly invisible, but his whole body and demeanour emoting in tandem with the narration (based on Edgar Allan Poe’s short story). Video projection (Gavin Peden) both provides blocks of light with which Usher (Tony Flynn) can interact and a garbled, blocky, noisy representation of his state of mind.

The soundscape (Ian Venard) is rich with a ticking clock at one point that propels the story without every dominating. It’s just one example of the expert balance that The Belfast Ensemble brings to their combination of dramaturgy, music, acting, lighting, sound, set and projection to create multi-layered performances which – like a good film – reveal more upon repeat viewing.

Part of me longs for an audio commentary to accompany The House of Usher. There’s richness in the production that probably only the cast and crew fully comprehend. Yet the magic is that not understanding the full complexity never dilutes the effect or harms the experience.

The C*** of Queen Catherine was back on stage after the interval. The third version that I’ve attended, and the first which didn’t require that the audience perched on beanbags.

The Castillian princess reveals that she’s more than the first in a tragic line of six wives of King Henry VIII, looking back over her life and in particular the ramifications of her earlier disappointing marriage to Arthur, Prince of Wales. Gender and reproduction are at the heart of her story – hence the piece’s unbroadcastable title* – yet are not the only lens through which we can view her life and legacy. References to building a wall add a dash of Brexit realism and help ground the piece in 2019 as well as 1531.

White pant-suited Abigail McGibbon is as sure-footed in her extended music-backed monologue as she is navigating the slanted set with its adapted table and chair. Light and shade (Simon Bird) once again enhance the drama. A bed of mellow viola (Aoife Magee) beautifully underscores some of the most intimate moments of Catherine’s self-realisation. For the first time, projection is introduced, and while it animates the stormy voyage to London, for the most part it feels like less would be more and McGibbon’s emotional range is sufficient to carry the piece.

*During the second interval you play the game of inventing new titles for the piece. The Cats of Queen Catherine was my favourite out of some of the suggestions I heard which included, Cows, Cock and Cyst …

As if two old favourites weren’t enough, this weekend’s audiences at the Lyric Theatre are being treated to the première of new commission (PRS Foundation) that will shortly be performed in London and Hull as part of the 2019 New Music Biennial. Lunaria (a flower that blooms every two years) takes verbatim news reports and Hansard transcripts from the last two years to create an ingenious overlapping 11-minute performance that highlights the confusing, contradictory, unexpected and often inexplicable nature of UK politics.

In this local staging, the orchestra and actors are arranged in concentric circles with their backs to the audience who mill around the performance. An agitated score sits beneath Matthew Cavan, Tony Flynn and Abigail McGibbon’s readings of long and dense passages that cover a General Election, Brexit negotiations, and the death of Lyra McKee. Brexit, borders, rights, agreement, discord, backstop: it was all there.

For me, that final and unanticipated section with its cacophony of contradictory and contrapuntal sources – the Real IRA statement, a news report and then Father Martin Magill’s powerful funeral address – converged to create a very emotional moment. Yet ensuing melee was also a reminder that the distressed news agenda that reflects our stressed identities, aspirations and values across these islands is often now heard as noise that oppresses our senses and further confuses us, rather than painting a picture that we can follow and buy into.

As a triptych of original, international-standard work, the fusion of The House of Usher, The C*** of Queen Catherine and Lunaria are a good match in the one evening. While the intimacy of the earlier in-the-round treatments with their overhead sets has been reduced, I found the distance refreshing, giving a wider perspective and space to imbibe each production’s themes and story.

The final performances of the Bash triple bill are on Saturday 29 June.

Hats off to The Belfast Ensemble for persevering with their vision for excellence in musical theatre. They’ve quickly become one of the most prodigious producers of new work in Northern Ireland, and deserve to cross these shores and increase their reach and impact.

At a time when Belfast theatres seem to be totally risk-averse and more financially-stretched than ever before, and only seven months away from the Grand Opera House stages going dark for major refurbishment, it’s refreshing to see edgy and thoughtful productions in a sector that has been lost a lot of its innovative verve, mostly through being financially winded with year-on-year cuts and politicians that on the whole talk a lot about the negatives of some types of culture but can’t sell the benefits of this kind.

Aside from all this, The Belfast Ensemble still have one more exuberant celebration of musical theatre up their sleeves. On Sunday night they’ll be back with a gala concert version of The Pirates of Penzance, Gilbert and Sullivan’s irreverent comic opera about a group of undesirables that take on the establishment’s sense of duty and redefine the notion of a sea border. In the continuing chaotic context of Brexit, it could be more modern horror than mirth, but the promise of some guest stars (Marie Jones making her operatic debut) and the teasing sound of rehearsals wafting up through the floorboards one evening make it feel like a Sunday night treat.

We The Animals – a feral coming of age tone poem for the silver screen (QFT from 21 June)

We The Animals is the cinematic version of a tone poem. Director Jeremiah Zagar projects a mood onto the silver screen rather than telling a story. We learn a lot, but hear little. This isn’t a taxing film to watch. Yet once the first half hour had passed and I had got over the initial life-is-too-short-for-this-pace-of-non-story feeling, it grew on me.

An abusive parental relationship swings from sunshine to violent gales as three young boys look on. Their Dad (Raúl Castillo) can be lovey dovey, but is mostly domineering, selfish and often absent. Their Mum (Sheila Vand) cares for and protects them when she can drag her lethargic body out of bed. The feral children creep around the house dressed only in shorts, scavenging for food and finding their own entertainment. Lying under his bed, the youngest, Jonah (Evan Rosado), processes what he sees by drawing disturbing pictures. A older teen with a penchant for explicit chatline TV ads triggers a gentle sexual awakening.

Very quickly it becomes apparent that the scenes are strung together without much of a narrative. Occasional surreal sequences communicate the out of control feeling at the hearty of the youngest child. The naturalistic filming is sometimes stretched beyond believability.

The final, fragile song over the credits beautifully wraps this coming of age drama about a tight-knit family gang who learn how to stand up for themselves – even when that means the father’s violent hand passes from one generation to the next – and leap towards aspects of adolescence far too quickly.

Despite the posters, it’s no more like Moonlight than it can be compared with The Florida Project, but We The Animals is perceptive and intelligent, and screening in Queen’s Film Theatre from Friday 21 June.

The Chronic Identity Crisis of Pamplemousse (NI Opera, touring NI until 22 June)

Just half-an-hour long, with colourful costumes, live music and a quirky plot, Northern Ireland Opera’s latest production, The Chronic Identity Crisis of Pamplemousse written and scored by Greg Caffrey, is aimed at children aged seven and over.

Pamplemousse is upset when he discovers that the creatures entering his kitchen through a hole in the skirting board share a similar name but fail to accept him as one of their own. The five sartorially-elegant mice mischievously scamper around (and over) the auditorium. When Pamplemousse is moved to tears at their intolerance, they leech off his sweet yellow tears, collapsing in a drunken stupor. He is elated by this bonding until the sated mice lose interest in his dried-up tears. But the appearance of Apricot (with a silent T) stirs something in his fleshy inside as he finds a velvety soulmate to snuggle up to in the fruit bowl.

With each performance preceded by a music and craft workshop, NI Opera have gone to a lot of effort to maximise the accessibility of the production, with a programme that answers questions, and a playful set that young audience members want to invade at the end.

Countertenor Francesco Giusti’s falsetto voice bursts out from his red and yellow grapefruit costume as he portrays the fruit in a middle of an identity crisis. Narrator John Porter is particularly strong as he recaps the story and keeps the audience on track. While Caffrey’s libretto doesn’t dumb down its vocabulary for its young audience, it does contain lots of repetition which overcomes a common operatic problem of crucial information being camouflaged behind the singing.

Enhancing Pamplemouse’s visual feast are the costumed members of the Hard Rain Soloist Ensemble conducted by the their musical director Sinead Hawes. Percussionist Cathryn Lynch is kept particularly busy as she glides between drum kit, vibraphone and wood blocks in one sequence, all the while blowing a whistle.

It’s good to see familiar faces from the NI Opera Studio performing in the troupe of mice. The range and regularity of their studio performances over the last year or so have been a welcome initiative to open up this genre to a wider range of audiences with shorter and more playful works that are less intimidating than the classic opera repertoire.

Belfast Ensemble’s concert version of Conor Mitchell’s The Musician was part of this year’s Belfast Children’s Festival. The Chronic Identity Crisis of Pamplemousse is hopefully the start of another annual opera performance aimed at the youngest audiences who can easily engage with the colourful, larger-than-life characters and surreal situations.

The Chronic Identity Crisis of Pamplemousse is touring through Newry (11am, Monday 17 June), Enniskillen (11am, Tuesday 18), Omagh (11am, 19 June), Armagh (11am, 21 June), Derry (3pm, 22 June).

A Night in November – an amazing evening of theatre not to be forgotten (Lyric Theatre until 21 June + NI tour)

The 25th anniversary production of A Night to Remember is a remarkable piece of theatre. Marie Jones’ 1994 script captures the internal battle as dole clerk Kenneth Norman McCallister wakes up to the sectarian hatred and discrimination which he has been part of and begins to question the shaky foundations of his Protestant identity.

While it’s a Troubles play, Jones doesn’t engineer the audience to laugh along with the sectarian behaviour. At least not the way her son Matthew McElhinney expertly directs the play. Nor does she turn it into a pity party. A Night to Remember is about getting under the skin of Belfast residents of the 1990s and understanding their motivations.

The intelligent script is brought to life by Matthew Forsythe who owns the stage as Kenneth from start to finish, while weaving in and out of everyone else he encounters and talks to along his journey. Multi-roling is more and more common in plays, but this is a level above what’s normally seen. Rehearsals must have been like a brutal boot camp in order to drill such sharp yet nuanced shifts of stance and demeanour into the performance. But the work and attention to detail has paid off. Veterans of Mydidae will smile in the second half as Forsythe bashfully makes a quick change!

The first half – nearly a complete play in itself – sees Kenneth accompany his father-in-law to the Republic of Ireland vs Northern Ireland qualifying game in Windsor Park. The behaviour of the NI fans audibly upsets some in the theatre audience, with tuts and gasps to be heard above the chanting and racist impersonations on stage. But Kenneth’s reaction and revulsion puts this horror in context.

After the interval, the pace intensifies with an explosive dinner party and another football match, as Kenneth breaks free from the traditions and conduct with which he is longer happy to abide. The emotional crunch near the end is very moving as the euphoric bubble of victory is burst with the news of a murderous attack back home (dovetailing in with an excellent documentary film).

Garth McConaghie’s soundscape envelops the stage. The domestic sound of a vacuum cleaner is warm and rich and allowed to fill the whole space much like the roar of the crowd in Windsor Park. Together with Conleth White’s lighting design and Chris Hunter’s mirrored set, these elements enhance the acting.

While by no means conclusive or certain, recent election results suggest that a portion of the Northern Ireland electorate have shifted in how they want to express their politics. It feels very apt to watch Kenneth break free from his old habits and explore new and very unexpected ways of expressing his identity and his aspirations, albeit dressed up as some sort of mid-life crisis that allows him to abandon home and work without telling anyone. Watching A Night in November brings home the distance we have travelled, while underscoring how many old suspicions and tensions and chants (on and off the field) remain just under the radar.

If a show ever deserved a standing ovation – which Belfast audiences tend to hand out at the drop of a hat – then the combination of Marie Jones’ writing, Matthew Forsythe’s acting and Matthew McElhinney’s direction merit long applause for a very special piece of live theatre that captivates and engages throughout.

Playing in the Lyric Theatre until 21 June, Soda Bread Theatre are taking the show out on the road and visiting Bangor, West Belfast, East Belfast, Newcastle, Limavady, Mullingar, Ballymena, Enniskillen, Cushendall, Armagh, Newtownabbey, Lisburn, Coalisland, Monaghan, Antrim and Derry in August and September.

Photo: Chris Hunter

The Girl on the Train - a great adaptation and superb set mechanics deliver a modern theatrical whodunit (Grand Opera House until 15 June)

While many in the Grand Opera House audience seemed familiar with either the original novel or the film adaptation, for those of us who were coming fresh to Paula Hawkins’ plot of The Girl on the Train, we found a fabulous piece of modern whodunit theatre.

The premise is that Rachel, an alcoholic woman with an unreliable and incomplete memory, discovers that someone she has regularly seen – out of her commuter train window while it’s been stopped at points – has gone missing. The house was only a couple of doors away from where her ex-husband still lives, and in parallel with the police investigation, Rachel inveigles herself into conversations with key witnesses and associates of the missing woman.

She’s like a modern-day Miss Marple feeding the local police detective with information he couldn’t normally be expected to uncover through his traditional methods, all the while making herself look more and more like the chief suspect as she weaves an ever larger and more complicated web of deceit.

Jack Knowles’ lighting is precise and Andrzej Goudling’s projections subtly animate the dark space and create an impressive representation of a moving railway carriage. The train theme is kept running with some of the James Cotterill’s detailed sets moving onto the stage as if on rails. Scenes flick between locations with a speed and lack of fuss that many other productions could learn from: it’s often as fast as turning a page. Kirsty Oswald appears on stage as the missing woman in flashbacks, with an elegant costume which slowly fades to black as we speed towards her character’s dark end.

Samantha Womack is convincing in her role as the subdued and through-other titular character. As Rachel reduces her alcohol intake, Womack becomes noticeably less clumsy and more stable. John Dougall triggers much levity with his dry wit as DI Gaskill. Naeem Hayat (the therapist), Adam Jackson-Smith (Rachel’s ex-husband) and Oliver Farnworth (the missing woman’s boyfriend) bring a hint of menace and uncertainty to their less-than-perfect characters.

Superb set mechanics and lighting add to the air of mystery and keep the plot speeding down the tracks in this modern theatrical thriller. If you haven’t read the book or watched the film, The Girl on the Train is still an attractive and enjoyable drama that will keep your brain second guessing all the way through to the reveal near the end.

Just make sure you silence your phone if you do attend. This evening’s first half was interrupted by the Top Gun theme music erupting in the front circle while after the interval another phone interrupted a crucial scene (the actor froze and waited very patiently).

The Girl on the Train continues in the Grand Opera House until Saturday 15 June.

Production shots: Manuel Harlan

Diego Maradona – a life of promise and pain, a story of talent and discipline as well as chutzpah and cheek (QFT from 14 June)

New documentary profile film Diego Maradona suggests that the public, ebullient showman Maradona took over from the inner, less secure and more loveable Diego, plunging the footballer into the depths of substance abuse and away from the game that he so loved.

Maradona bore the burden of providing for his family from the age of 15, of feeding his craving for winning, of overcoming the hatred against him, of being unable to resist the opportunities that fed his addictions to women and cocaine, of becoming dependent on the Camorra crime syndicate for his supply of white powder, and of not being able to escape Napoli when he first asked to be released.

The high energy opening reveals the filmmaker’s hand and quickly establishes that Maradona is one of the all-time football greats and also seeds the doubt about whether he was ready for the fame and notoriety that followed his antics on and off the pitch. The audience are told that his success on the field is down to brain rather than brawn, with an understanding of how to adapt his footballing techniques to different situations, though we are also introduced to his personal coach who clearly boosts his already apparent high level of fitness.

The film concentrates on his time spent in Naples playing for the little-rated southern Italy team, building them up to national and European trophy wins, and the immediate aftermath of his fall from grace after encouraging Napoli fans to support Argentina in their World Cup game against Italy, recklessly staged in the Napoli stadium as part of Italia ’90. (That ‘hand of God’ moment from 1986 also features!)

Even recognising the peaks to which his career soared and the subsequent decline in personal and sporting fortune, the 130-minute run time is a tad indulgent and still doesn’t leave room to examine other aspects of Maradona’s legacy, for instance his political opinions.

Director Asif Kapadia never lets us see the people being interviewed about Maradona to be seen on-screen, relying instead on often grainy but very effective visuals from broadcast media outlets and behind-the-scene footage from family, fans and clubs. As someone who has never attended a professional football match, I am not really this film’s target audience, yet I found it strangely captivating as it unfolded the story of a life of promise and pain, of talent, skill and discipline as well as confidence, chutzpah and cheek.

Diego Maradona is being screened in the Queen’s Film Theatre from Friday 14 June and will also be shown in the Odeon on Thursday 13 June as part of Docs Ireland.

Gloria Bell – the cinematic equivalent of a warm hug (QFT from 7 June)

Remaking a foreign-language films for an English market always risks throwing the baby out with the bathwater in order to make a commercial success. With Gloria Bell, director Sebastián Lelio returns to his 2013 Chilean Gloria with Julianne Moore in the titular role. Neither of them can do any wrong.

Opening with a slow zoom and a jump cut establishes the distinctive editing style of this character study that keeps the 102 minute film moving. She cuts a fashionable, awkward, worrying figure: a middle-aged divorcee who hangs around nightclubs in the hope of an opportunity to throw herself at some pleasant company. But the scrawny, neighbourhood cat seems to be the only man with a key to her apartment and a chance of finding the key to her heart.

“When the world blows up, I hope I go down dancing.”

No area of her life is off-limits to the camera. Laughing therapies, waxing (nothing to laugh about) and a trip to the paintball park owned by her new squeeze Arnold (John Turturro) are all occasions for the audience to question romance, happiness and manipulation.

Moore delivers a masterclass in awkwardness, navigating the conflicts and emotional family situations with a confidence that lets the audience sit back and enjoy the ride. At no point did the plot get its emotional hooks into me, but unusually that didn’t dampen my enjoyment. Gloria Bell is an incredibly satisfying film that deserves its explosive conclusion and the final song from karaoke queen Gloria.

With a great soundtrack, strong central performances and a thorough sprinkling of quirkiness, Gloria Bell is the cinematic equivalent of a warm hug. Embrace the opportunity to see it while you can at Queen’s Film Theatre from Friday 7 June until Thursday 20 June.

Belfast Girls – transplanting an online character to the stage (The MAC until 23 June)

The MAC’s Luminaire Club is back with its cabaret-style tables and drinks service, producing a less formal and stuffy theatre environment. The now familiar tunnelled set with its rich array of lighting creates an intimate atmosphere that shows can exploit.

The Belfast Girls – Bernie Greene (Michael Mulcahy) and her friends Betty (Christina Nelson who also directs) and Michelle (Jazzmin McClure) – fancy a week away from Andytown in the sun. But when Bernie’s DLA is threatened, and boyfriend Shankill Joe’s affections wander elsewhere (though he always seemed shifty with an odd love for Bundoran), a dark cloud drifts over her tanning plans. The plot is flimsy and realistically just a vehicle for localised parody songs and some situation comedy as Nelson and McClure pop in and out of a range of secondary characters.

Extending a Facebook/YouTube sketch character into a 90-minute show is clearly difficult, particularly when the central actor’s unenthusiastic dancing skills are as laboured and lethargic as Bernie’s stiffened movement at her PIP assessment. The dialogue is puerile, the only effect of the constant expletives is to pad out sentences, and every “wee tramp” or “hoor” seems to be repetitively “talking shite”.

Nelson’s crotch-grabbing Shankill Joe is particularly memorable, and McClure’s Anne-Marie (Bernie’s posh, bobbed sister) adds a little villainy (though Mulcahy’s script allows the jeopardy to be revealed and then resolved in a single scene). Well-produced videos entertain between scenes, an enhancement to last year’s Waterfront run.

Aside from the lighting, the show’s strongest elements are the songs: I’m a Barbie Belfast Girl is well-crafted, the Venga Boys’ We’re Going to Ibiza parody betters the original, while the final reprise of How Dare You Speak To Me Like That got the audience up on their feet and singing.

Belfast stages have been blessed this week with two light-hearted shows that engender a febrile, hen party-like atmosphere in the audience. The Grand Opera House bar sensibly stays closed before and after The Real Housewives of Norn Iron’s interval, whereas the round table layout and the lure of the bar overpowered the plot leaving some MAC audience members wandering in and out.

The transaction with these shows seems to be offering simplistic entertainment in return for putting money into actor’s pockets. That’s not to be sniffed at, and it’s a long-established genre that owes a lot to James Young and many other fine performers who have graced club stages over the years. But what does it achieve?

The ladder that venues wish replenishing audiences to climb up may be somewhat mythical. But if it exists, I see little aspiration in extended sketch shows, never mind some local pantomimes, to hook people into anything more ambitious than splitting a few sides. It may keep the lights on in venues at a slow time of the year, but does make them more viable in the longer term? Contrast this with It’s a Wonderful Wee Christmas at the Theatre at the Mill last December which managed to shine a tight spotlight on mental health at the same time as serving up the funny bits. It proved that it is possible.

Belfast Girls continues its run at The MAC until Sunday 23 June.

The Real Housewives of Norn Iron (Grand Opera House until 8 June + NI tour)

You could argue that in penning The Real Housewives of Norn Iron, Leesa Harker has written a clever, satirical comedy which exposes local theatre audiences to the self-serving and scandal-hungry agenda of reality TV shows by transplanting a trashy US show to the environs of Northern Ireland with a brash emerald-suited host and four very different women. It’s nothing like the tame BBCNI There’s No Place Like Tyrone, but with Love Island returning to small screens and the ethics and standards of the Jeremy Kyle Show being raked over, the theme is very current.

There’s Cynthia, the posh-BT9er who is named purely for a particular equine joke, played by Roisin Gallagher with all the faux airs and graces that one might expect from the popular stereotype. Rosie McClelland excels as Dora, a Fermanagh farmer (and farmer’s wife) who sees life and recreation through a distinctly agricultural lens. Diona Doherty’s Iwonka battles with an insecure relationship underneath her public Insta-tastic hashtagging influencer front, while Harker-show veteran Caroline Curran revels in the role of Jean, a straight-talking Mum of six who doesn’t mince her words.

Patrick McBrearty plays the sleazy host, Terry Trousersnake, who has one eye on the show’s ratings and the other on its talent. As well as adding to the hen night frenzy with his ripped torso and gyrating groin, his character throws in plot grenades that reveal secrets to disrupt the female bon homie that breaks out once the women realise that they have more in common than divides them.

The on-stage caricatures are enhanced by mannerisms, knowing glances at the audience, and Curran’s ability to milk a scene for audience laughs when she knows she’s got them on a roll. The extended fart jokes and choreographed parodies of classic pop songs (with some nice harmonies thrown in) work well, but there’s nothing subtle about the humour of the performances (vulnerable children are as likely to be laughed at as Larne). Director Andrea Montgomery makes good use of the space around the simple set and characters comically disappearing over the side of the sofa add to the humour.

The audience settle down to roar with laughter once Curran delivers the first big swear about five minutes in, and while the energy dips just before the interval – the previous song would have been a stronger place to bring down the Opera House curtain – the cast of five keep the show tunnelling through its Viagra-boosted second half and towards the final crowd-pleasing reprise medley.

It’s undeniable that the majority female audience found it very entertaining on Tuesday evening. I was less convinced. Vulgarity has a place and can make for very effective theatre. But can also be tedious without a greater purpose. The plot’s ambition falls short of delivering a dynamic denouement that would build on the outbreak of girl power and allow the women to properly challenge or perhaps even turn the tables on the host who has humiliated them. These ‘real housewives of Norn Iron’ don’t seem to do revenge, even though it would have added greatly to the impact of the satire.

The adventures of The Real Housewives of Norn Iron continues in the Grand Opera House until Saturday 8 June, before touring through Lagan Valley Island, Lisburn (Tuesday 11 and Wednesday 19 June); Riverside Theatre, Coleraine (Wednesday 12); Theatre at the Mill, Newtownabbey (Thursday 13); Downshire (Friday 14); Market Place Theatre, Armagh (Saturday 15); Grand Opera House (Sunday 16); The Braid, Ballymena (Thursday 20); Burnavon Theatre, Cookstown (Friday 21); Millennium Forum, Derry (Saturday 22).