Faust-ish – is a deal with the devil the only way out of this politician’s #CashForMash scandal? (Big Telly Theatre Company in Lyric Theatre as part of Belfast International Arts Festival until Sunday 9 November) #BIAF25

The 2025 Belfast International Arts Festival programme has included some brilliant theatre productions, but they may have saved the best until last. Big Telly’s Faust-ish is a fresh, contemporary and invigorating production with a consistent aesthetic that extends across the script, the acting, the movement, the set, the lights, the sound, and every aspect of the show.

The gathering audience find themselves witnessing a hastily convened press conference with the local Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Farming who quite categorically states “I will not resign” despite the police investigation into the ‘Cash For Mash’ scandal. (Current criticisms of several Executive Ministers and calls for votes of no confidence strongly resonate, although there are no financial allegations in these real-world challenges.)

We next join the now former minister Faith Hughes in Black Arch Cave where she’s knocking back miniature bottles of solace, pouring out a circle of salt, and chanting an incantation in a bid to summon the devil and do a deal to restore her reputation and regain power. Not quite the ‘meaningful change’ she has been campaigning for, but she’ll do just anything that’s asked of her if it’ll resurrect her career. The problem for Faith is that she may not have much of a soul to sell. (Classically, Faust makes a deal with the devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures.)

Dressed in a red power suit, Jo Donnelly portrays a ferocious political operator whose personal relationships are tertiary to her concerns to exercise power and cling onto it. (Donnelly previously appeared as resigned Prime Minister Theresa May in Rosemary Jenkinson’s 2019 Mayday! tragi-comedy.) Even when her chips are down – or about to be toasted in the fires of hell – Faith still works every angle to exploit matters for her advantage. Double down and never quit seems to be her mantra.

To help Faith understand who she is dealing with, Lucifer (a masterful Chris Robinson) takes the shape of her ultimate nemesis ... a senior civil servant accompanied by his resourceful junior underlings. But will he play by the rules when up against such a fierce negotiator as the cancelled politician?

Big Telly enjoys turning theatre on its head. In the Lyric’s studio venue, curtains rise up from the floor to help create the set. The tech desk sits to stage right while some props and live sound effects spring from stage left. The devils’ costumes are beige (with Lucifer getting neat pockets on the outside of his trousers), part of the production’s stripped back canvass onto which an examination of power is projected. Much of the lighting (Sarah Jane Shiels) is handheld, creating novel and evocative shadow effects.

Emma Rose Creaner slips on a red jacket to become Wendy, personal assistant to Faith, morphing into an uber-ambitious colleague who slowly amps up her megalomaniacal tendencies as she navigates the opportunity caused by Faith’s fall from grace. Creaner also portrays Faith’s daughter Aoife who has been sidelined as a terrible inconvenience and embarrassment by her mother and is bullied at school (as one nearby audience members knew from personal experience).

Claire Lamont completes the strong cast of daemons, and plays adolescent Faith’s guardian and ‘The Way’, a character who holds Lucifer to account. Sashaying her way across the stage, Lamont exudes joy and delight in many of the moments of beautiful movement which feel very natural and unforced that have been created by director Zoe Seaton and choreographer Sarah Johnston. The miming of typing is both fun and frenzied. An argument physically moves across the stage from side to side as we watch the two protagonists try to turn the table on each other.

Nicola McCartney’s deeply satirical script takes the view that the public don’t – or no longer – expect high standards of those serving in public office. It’s full of political lingo and a riot of ideas and analysis of how power corrupts. By the time we reach the final quarter of the 70-minute show, it feels like the shark has almost been jumped when a Mars-bound tech CEO Ella Tusk appears (although the gag about “interplanetary salad bars” is almost worth it).

Politicians are easy targets for cynical playwrights. Yet politicians are a focal point for how we scrutinise society and how the state impacts our lives. They demand and deserve considerable media attention, and can sway everyday debate and sentiment on subjects many of wouldn’t have realised we needed a strong opinion on. And politicians – a proportion of them – have a record of not always behaving with the integrity the role warrants (even if public expectations have been dampened).

But McCartney’s script does hint that politicians aren’t the only people who might sell their soul to the devil. And the scenes between Faith and her daughter Aoife are some of the most poignant moments in the play as nature faces nurture and Faith must decide whether she has passed on her experience of being abandoned by her mother to the next generation. That’s quite universal amid the throwing of shade towards elected representatives!

The atmosphere created by the lights and set are augmented by Garth McConaghie’s soundscape which runs throughout almost all of the performance (the few moments when it’s silent really stand out) with musical themes that accent Faith’s behaviour and struggles as well as reverb effects that emphasise when the action has returned to the cave.

Monologues, arguments, flashbacks, a song and dance number: Faust-ish throws a lot of different elements into the mixing bowl and together they create a very tasty performance. There are puns aplenty, both verbal and musical.

Faust-ish is technically ambitious. It’s quite mad. Yet even in its most outlandish and unexpected moments, you still get drawn into the scenes through the quality of the different creative elements working together in perfect harmony.

Race to get a ticket for Faust-ish. It runs in the Lyric Theatre until Sunday 9 November as part of Belfast International Arts Festival. And don’t forget to bring a torch.

Photo credit: Neil Harrison Photography 

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