The Tragedy of Richard III – the rise and fall of a king who loses his grip (Lyric Theatre until Sunday 10 November as part of Belfast International Arts Festival) #biaf24

Richard, the Duke of Gloucester has recently been diagnosed with a terminal illness. Rather than feeling depressed, the prognosis fires up his ambition to seize the crown from his brother Edward and place himself on the throne. As Richard hatches plans and his henchman Tyrrel silently dispatches all who stand in his way, the wannabe monarch’s health deteriorates. Ultimately, the wheelchair-using ruler runs out of room to manoeuvre, and the sword Richard has wielded turns against him.

The Tragedy of Richard III is a whip-smart adaptation of William Shakespeare’s second longest play. Oisín Kearney and Michael Patrick have cut down to size the original panoply of characters, with some non-speaking roles even replaced with dress dummies wheeled around the stage by the nine cast members. The essence of the story remains intact, and the humorous tone – at times camp – of the first half perhaps more closely resembles the original performances in London’s rowdy Globe Theatre than worthy productions that exude self-importance.

Michael Patrick plays Richard, returning to the stage in ever more elaborate and elevating wheelchairs as his power grows. Remaining seated in no way limits the portrayal. Scooting about the stage, being trapped by scenery, Richard has a growing understanding of how his illness affects some aspects of his independence. (At some performances, the role of Richard will be played by Zak Ford-Williams.) The speeches and dialogue have the heft of a man on a mission, while the side eye and gesticulations give a sense of the impatience and impertinence of Richard. His older brother Clarence prances around in his Y-fronts with an accent that resembles Daniel O’Donnell. Hardly king material. Loyal servant Tyrrel is played by Deaf actor Paula Clarke. Tyrrel’s use of sign language never seems unnatural, and while the characters take as many liberties with their gestures as they do the spoken word, Tyrrel’s deafness is integral to the role and adds depth to the character. (Though I wish at least one character had been allowed to sign properly with BSL rather than the communication being one-way.)

Patrick McBrearty play’s Richard’s strong ally and strategic thinker. There’s a warmth in their relationship and a playfulness to the way his Buckingham lobs comments and asides into other people’s conversations. A king-to-me apparently needs a wife, and Lady Anne (Ghaliah Conroy) is coerced into marrying Richard, a further abuse from the man who killed her father (King Henry VI) and her previous husband. Pleasingly, Conroy later returns in the role of Richmond to challenge Richard for the crown.

King Edward’s pregnant wife, Queen Elizabeth, senses that she has much to lose as Richard sweeps to power. Charlotte McCurry channels a don’t -mess-with-me spirit as she fills Elizabeth with passion and – at least – attempts to stand up to the bully

Katie Richardson’s score features live percussion: Allison Harding (playing the Duchess of York, Richard’s mother) sounds like she had a misspent youth in a rock band or an orchestra as she beats the kettle drums. The timpani and side drums feed into the military aspect of monarchy and assist the build-up to the epic final battle scene. While the sparse stage with blocky set are almost reminiscent of the story playing out in Minecraft, the method of disposing of bodies, the paramilitary mobs, and the riot police summon up shadows of contemporary society and power struggles.

The first half places Richard centre stage and wittily depicts his bloody rise to the top. After the interval, it is all about him losing control. Richard is struggling to catch his breath and can no longer operate his own wheelchair and is unable to dress himself. He’s losing his grip. The black drapes that created cosy locations in the first half have been removed and the audience can see behind the scenes of Niall McKeever’s set. The levity is gone, and the audience appreciate that Richard has lost his smoke and mirrors. The end is nigh.

A costume change in the final scene signals that Michael Patrick is delivering Richard’s words as an actor rather than the character. It’s a moment that acknowledges that the actor was diagnosed last year with Motor Neuron Disease. His qualification for the role is sobering and heart-breaking. It’s clearly a poignant speech to deliver, and a very emotional moment for the audience to witness. Long may Michael Patrick continue to ply his acting trade on stage. His anchoring of this version of Richard III is a career-defining performance, a remarkable living celebration of his talent and resilience. And long may his award-winning writing partnership with Oisín Kearney continue to bear rich fruit.

The Tragedy of Richard III is a bold production with which to open the Belfast International Arts Festival. It’s very accessible to audiences unfamiliar with Shakespeare: a handy family tree at the back of the programme explains who everyone is, and I kept that page open on my lap throughout the first act. It’s also a testament to how disability can be very naturally and inclusively incorporated into theatre. It can be designed in and nothing is lost. Quite the opposite. There’s a richness to the wider representation and it expands the potential for storytelling.

Shakespeare might not be your thing, but 24 hours after standing to applaud the opening night cast, the story and the performances and the atmosphere is still whizzing around my head. The Tragedy of Richard III is seriously good theatre, and continues its run at the Lyric Theatre until Sunday 10 November.

Photo credit: Johnny Frazer, Melissa Gordon.

Appreciated this review? Why not click on the Buy Me a Tea button!

An Inspector Calls – come to be bamboozled, prepare to be challenged (Grand Opera House until Saturday 19 October)

Before An Inspector Calls begins, the red curtains stretching across the stage are sitting at a jaunty angle. A hint about the out of kilter nature of the lives that are about to unravel on stage. It’s 1912, and an air raid siren wails while rain falls. But those irritations don’t interfere with the postprandial chat of the Birlings as they celebrate daughter Sheila’s betrothal to Gerald Croft.

Ian MacNeil’s set plays with scale and perspective, putting the oversized family in a cramped birdcage of a shrunken dolls house that has been elevated six feet above contradiction. The Birlings’ initial conversation is heard but not seen: it’s important that we get an honest measure of their characters and motivations before judging their posh dress and upper middle class deportment. The maid Edna remains on the ground, technically outside the house, never ascending to the Birling’s level, her mostly silent presence a constant reminder of the us and them classism writ large in J. B. Priestly’s script.

Edna announces the arrival of Police Inspector Goole. His impertinent questioning in connection with the death of a young woman, Eva Smith, gradually reveals the prosperous family’s communal complicity in the circumstances leading up to the tragedy. As the household literally and figuratively collapses, can the Birling family come to terms with their behaviour and take the rap for their unpleasant actions?

Son Eric (George Rowlands) comes across at first as unfiltered and an original thinker before we find out about his much darker, coercive side. Older sister Sheila (a bravura performance from Leona Allen) has a sharp temper in public but is eager to please in private at home, her dialogue at times used to unsubtly reinforce Priestly’s summation of each scene in case the audience were in any doubt. Father Arthur (Jeffrey Harmer) is a bully who has become too big for his britches and craves civic recognition, while his well-to-do wife Sybil (Jackie Morrison) assumes moral superiority over everyone. Fiancé Gerald (Tom Chapman) is a cad, though an honest one right up until the point he constructs a giant Get Out of Jail Free Card for his future in-laws. Inspector Goole (Tim Treloar) drops in like a bomb on a short fuse, bringing the family down to his level, needling each member into admissions of guilt and culpability until they are left lying on the floor, shadows of their former glorious selves.

Priestly – through Goole – lectures the audience about power imbalances, classism, and the danger of letting the capitalists walk over the workers. Premiered in 1945 – in Russia of all places – An Inspector Call predates George Orwell’s Nineteen Eight-Four but deals with the management and manipulation of truth (albeit more mildly mannered). Director Stephen Daldry makes Treloar deliver an almost Messiah-like sermon straight out to the stalls, with Rick Fisher’s atmospheric lighting removed for fullest effect. Despite all this effort, I’m not sure the feeling of personal shame and responsibility quite landed on the Grand Opera House audience.

The sleight of hand at play throughout most of the play is good fodder for reviewers who are also fact checkers. Who do we believe? How do we come to make judgements?

“I don’t believe it. I won’t believe it.” sounds like the rantings of an impetuous child … or a modern political candidate. But it’s the part of the modern arsenal of denying uncomfortable facts, doubling down on lies, diverting attention, and manufacturing elaborate explanations to prove why what seems intuitively obvious might not be demonstrably reliable.

And while Priestly’s critique of capitalism has no room for a critique of socialism (or communism), he asks good questions. Who do we protect? Ourselves or others? Do the rich inevitably build their version of morality around not getting caught doing the bad things they’ve done? Do the working class look on like sinless witnesses of the rich people’s depravity without any means of intervention? (That last question might not be one that Priestly intended to pose.)

The twist in the final minute is almost undermined by the sheer amount of doubt that has been spread in the preceding 45 minutes. It’s a slightly disappointing ending to an otherwise tightly written and engagingly staged play that thankfully doesn’t solely rely on a big reveal like other touring mystery plays.

An Inspector Calls continues its run at the Grand Opera House until Saturday 19 October. There’s no interval so empty your bladder. And please silence your mobiles. They didn’t exist in 1912. And a shout out to the community cast who loiter in later scenes and remain upright for the bows at the end.

Photo credit: Mark Douet

Appreciated this review? Why not click on the Buy Me a Tea button!

Belfast Film Festival – ten days of homegrown and international cinema (Thursday 31 October–Saturday 9 November)

Belfast Film Festival is back with a ten-day programme that celebrates films and filmmaking, from shorts to medium duration and feature-length cinema. While there’s nothing from Iceland being screened this year (that alone qualifies a film to jump to the top of a must-see list), there are lots of local and international screenings to choose from.

Thursday 31 October

Fréwaka | 19:00 at Cineworld (103 minutes) | Aislinn Clarke’s second feature opens the festival. It tells the story of care assistant Shoo, who rather than confront the death of her mother, takes a job looking after an elderly woman in a large and remote country house. As the two women slowly come to trust each other, events take a turn that mean they are forced to face up to the truth about each other’s lives. This Irish language horror was shot in Carlingford and Ravensdale, capturing an atmospheric Ireland steeped in history, folklore, secrets and religious iconography.

Universal Language | 20:30 at QFT (89 minutes) | If you can’t make it along to the opening screening, then Matthew Rankin’s offbeat absurdist comedy might be a good alternative. What if the Canadian city of Winnipeg, with its constant tussle between French and English speakers, instead adopted Farsi (Persian) as its official language! A satirical invitation to explore culture and community.

Sunday 3 November

Eephus | 12:45 at QFT (98 minutes) | With their pitch facing demolition, Carson Lund’s wistful movie depicts a small, shabby league of mostly middle-aged amateur players in a sleepy New England suburb, bantering and beercanning their way through the last game of the baseball season. A funny-sad-sweet tribute to the unifying power of community activity.

Dead Man’s Money | 18:00 at QFT (82 minutes) | A gala screening of writer-director Paul Kennedy’s latest production. Young Henry works in his uncle’s pub and when Old Henry begins a new relationship with The Widow, Young Henry hatches a plan to secure the inheritance. Matters spiral out his control when shady pub customer Gerry The Wheels gets involved.

Second Chance | 20:30 at QFT (104 minutes) | 25-year-old Nia retreats to her family’s Himalayan holiday home in the dead of winter, to recuperate following a traumatic breakup and a termination. Amidst the icy backdrop, Nia finds a warm and healing friendship with the housekeeper, an eight-year old, and a cute kitten. An intimately observed story from Indian writer-director Subhadra Mahajan.

Monday 4 November

Armand | 18:00 at Odeon (117 minutes) | A six-year-old boy accuses another of unthinkable abuse. The children are never seen. But the incident triggers grown-up bad behaviour from the boys’ parents and teachers, gathered for a classroom conference that spirals swiftly out of control. An unnerving, hot house, shape-shifting debut by Norwegian writer-director Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel.

Tuesday 5 November

La Cocina | 18:00 at Odeon (139 minutes) | Based on Arnold Wesker’s 1957 play, The Kitchen, Rooney Mara and Raul Briones Carmona star in this dynamic and beautifully photographed adaptation that follows the inner-workings of a large and busy restaurant kitchen off Times Square in New York City. One by one we meet the restaurant staff, build up a picture of the hierarchical boundaries of class, gender, ethnicity, language and culture, and the camaraderie of teamwork in a pressurised environment. Sometimes operatic and stylistically bold film written and directed by Mexican filmmaker, Alonso Ruizpalacios.

Rumours | 20:45 at Odeon (103 minutes) | A raucously hilarious skewering of the well-meaning ineffectiveness and gestural rhetoric of the G7 forum, imagined in this film as an international confederacy of dunces, headed by a stiff-backed German chancellor wickedly played by Cate Blanchett. As she and six other world leaders gather in a custom-built gazebo to discuss sundials, the Olympic Games and an unspecified ‘global crisis’ that none of them knows how to solve, a heavy fog sets in, zombie-like beings rise from the earth, and the fun really begins. A corrective to so much political satire that tends towards being clever rather than amusing. An absurd collaboration between veteran Canadian experimentalist Guy Maddin and fraternal directing duo Evan and Galen Johnson on the day of the US Presidential election!

Wednesday 6 November

The Unholylands | 18:00 at Odeon (102 minutes) | Two students living in the Holylands area of Belfast plan for one last house party. Their father finds out and intervenes, forbidding any more parties. Will they risk the family’s reputation and the chance that they’ll be cut off for good. Can they keep control over the event when their father’s assistant is sent monitor proceedings, A homegrown comedy with cameos from Nathan Carter, Tyrone McKenna and James Nesbitt.

The Spin | 20:30 at Odeon (92 minutes) | Two down on their luck record store owners from Omagh take a cross-country road trip to Cork to acquire a priceless record that could save their failing business and save them from eviction from their evil landlord, Sadie. Weaving together the landscape, music and cultural touchpoints of Omagh in this film written by Colin Broderick, directed by Michael Head and starring Tara Lynne O’Neill, Owen Colgan, Brenock O’Connor, Leah O’Rourke, Maura Higgins and Kimberly Wyatt.

Thursday 7 November

Paul & Paulette Take a Bath | 18:00 at Odeon (109 minutes) | A young Parisian who obsessively visits the sites of gruesome historical events and reenacts them is inside the mind of Marie Antoinette before the guillotine blade falls when she catches the eye of a young American photographer. An offbeat love-story brimming with romantic optimism and dark-tinged disillusion. Directed by Jethro Massey, starring Marie Benati and Jeremie Galiana.

Nightbitch | 20:30 at QFT (98 minutes) | Forget childless cat ladies. The real danger to the future of humankind is posed by dog-loving women with kids with Amy Adams juggling her love for her child with her frustration with an absent husband (Scoot McNariy) and her resentment at them both for the way her prior identity as an artist has been subsumed into that of a stay-at-home mom. Darkly humorous.

Saturday 9 November

King Baby | 13:15 at QFT (88 minutes) | A wooden queen comes between a king and a servant in this surreal, dark comedy from English filmmaking duo Kit and Arran. Set in a fictitious kingdom where the sun always shines and the population of two – the king and his servant – live in the open air of a ruined castle until a dream prompts the monarch to command his servant to carve a queen, upsetting the delicate balance of what has gone before. An imaginative exploration of class, hierarchy, gender and power.

Ritz Day – live podcast recording | 14:00 at The Black Box (75 minutes) | Hosts of The Wonder Cinema podcast, filmmaker Brian Henry Martin and cinema historian Dr Sam Manning celebrate the anniversary of the Ritz cinema in Fisherwick Place (later the site of the ABC and Cannon screens, before the building was reconstituted as a Jurys Inn hotel). Bring your memories of the Ritz. Enjoy a slice of birthday cake and marvel at Stuart Marshall’s new model of the cinema.

Housewife of the Year | 18:30 at QFT (77 minutes) | Ciaran Cassidy’s documentary tells the story of a largely forgotten Irish beauty pageant. Weaves together participants’ perspectives on the social norms of the day, the lack of contraception and choice, the Magdalen laundries, and of course the women’s everyday lives and the opportunity to escape the quotidian boredom by being in a pageant.

The Other Way Around | 20:30 at QFT (114 minutes) | Madrid couple Ale and Elex have decided to call it quits on their 14-year relationship. A loopy tale of two people who’ve fallen out of love but not out of like, who are determined to harpoon the ultimate relationship white whale: the pleasant break-up. Neil Sedaka know that Breaking Up Is Hard To Do. But what is doomed can also be noble in Jonás Trueba’s film starring Itsaso Arana and Vito Sanz.

2024 Belfast International Arts Festival – some theatre, dance, circus and literature treats from the 39 day programme #biaf24

The Belfast International Arts Festival is upon us, with a bumper 39 days of events, artistic experiences and exhibitions. Here are just a few of the theatre, dance and literature events from the full festival programme

The Tragedy of Richard III // Wed 16 Oct–Sun 10 Nov // Lyric Theatre // The very hotly anticipated tragic adaption of Shakespeare’s history play opens the festival. Adapted by talented duo Oisín Kearney (who also directs) and Michael Patrick (who stars as Richard III in some shows), it explores the hunger for power of the disabled brother of the King even in the face of certain death. With a lead actor who was diagnosed with motor neurone disease last year playing the lead role and manoeuvring around the stage in a series of ever more elaborate wheelchairs, and Deaf actor Paula Clarke playing the chief villain Tyrell communicating with Richard through sign language and gesture, it’s an ambitious production that takes an old story and promises to give it purpose for modern times with a vivid staging. You can catch an interview with Oisín and Michael on last Friday’s The Ticket (starts 29’16) that will whet your appetite.

Yerma // Thu 17 Oct–Sun 3 Nov // Lyric Theatre // A few feet away from Richard III you can find Tinderbox Theatre Company’s adaptation of Spanish poet and dramatist Federico García Lorca’s Yerma in the Lyric’s studio space. The story about a childless woman living in rural Spain has been shifted to rural Ireland. The set is novel, the characterisaton is tight, This imaginative reset of the story is rich and intriguing. However, the runtime exceeds some audience members’ bladders, triggering disruptive coming and going in the stalls. (Maybe not an artistic priority, but still a practical one that is worth considering.) The set with its crazy entrances and exits is novel, the reset story is compelling, and the casting – particularly Caoimhe Farren in the titular role – is excellent. [reviewed]

The Piece with the Drums // Fri 18–Sat 19 Oct // The MAC // One of the festival’s annual gifts to the city is bringing over artists and concepts that wouldn’t normally have a following or a ready audience. This production from David Bolger and CoisCéim Dance Theatre treats us to a visual and aural conversation between a dancer and percussion. Toes tapping, limbs flapping, and drums beating.

David Park // Wed 23 Oct // The Linen Hall // Novelist David Park in conversation with Hugh Odling-Smee.

Aurora: A Modern Myth // Thu 24 Oct–Sat 2 Nov // The MAC // Another highly anticipated theatre production from Prime Cut with Dominic Montague’s tale opf environmental concern and activism merging gaming technology, animation and live theatre to create a magical experience. Directed by Emma Jordan and starring Meghan Tyler, Maria Connolly, Conor O Donnell, Thomas Finnegan … and a tree.

North Star // Thu 24–Fri 25 Oct // The Telegraph Building // An immersive night of live music inspired by a speech given by abolitionist Frederick Douglassin Belfast in 1845. Features performances by Kaidi Tatham, Nandi Jola, Leo Miyagee, Winnie Ama, Hannah Peel, Colin Salmon, and nearly 100 pupils from four Belfast schools. Part of Belfast 2024.

Losing It & In Between // Fri 25–Sat 26 Oct // The MAC // In this double bill, Losing It explores the lingering trauma of war through movement and sound with Palestinian dancer and choreographer Samaa Wakim. How does growing up in a war zone and inheriting the pain of previous generations manifest itself in your body and your movement. And to open the show, in In Between circus performer Esam Sultan “depicts an innocent Palestinian born into a life of struggle”, dreaming of a better life, but battling against alienation and loneliness.

WILD // Sat 26 Oct at 13:00 and 15:15 // CS Lewis Square // Free // In recent years, the festival has brought circus into the fold and Motionhouse’s latest production places its performers on a forest made of tall scaffolding poles and platforms high up in the canopy. Described as “gravity-defying dance-circus”, head over to east Belfast to get a glimpse of the acclaimed acrobatic outdoor show.

The Vanishing Elephant // Thu 31 Oct–Sat 2 Nov // Grand Opera House // Cahoots is a theatre company with an incredible still in telling stories suitable for young and old that captivate through their sense of closeness or intimacy, fine gestures, elaborate puppets and magic. The shows are curated in a theatre environment which has an incredible control of sound and light. This latest tale from long-time collaborate Charles Way follows the paths of a boy born in Bengal who befriends an Asian elephant. Years later as an old man he hears that Houdini will vanish an elephant live on stage in New York. Expect gasps, magic and maybe even tears.

Granny’s Jackson’s Dead // Thu 31 Oct–Sun 2 Nov // 47 Malone Road // Big Telly Theatre Company’s favourite grandmother is getting another wake. Step into her home and pay your respects alongside her family as they remember this larger-than-life character who lives on the hearts of so many. Immersive, subversive and thought-provoking. The show premiered earlier this year in NI Science Festival and alongside the overtly theatrical elements, it gently explores our attitudes, tolerances and reaction to death, grief tech, and the ethics of loss.

Austin Duffy & Phil Harrison // Tue 5 Nov // No Alibis Bookshop // two Irish authors in discussion about their latest works, the turning points of the Troubles, and the legacy of masculinity.

Michael Longley // Wed 6 Nov // Seamus Heaney Centre // Recording and live-streaming events, I witness all kinds of performers, lecturers and events hunched behind a sound mixer and a preview screen of video feeds. One of the most memorable this year was doing sound for an academic conference in a subdued Ulster Museum art gallery as poet Michael Longley read from a selection of his work and threw in wry comments on their context. It was captivating … and I say that as someone who rarely ‘gets’ or looks forward to poetry. Longley is back, this time in conversation about his new selected poems collection Ash Keys with poet and novelist Nick Laird.

Impasse // Wed 6 Nov // The MAC // Two performers confront the biased narratives etched onto Black bodies throughout history. Considering cultural imperialism, racial projections, autonomy and self-determination. The first presentation of work in Northern Ireland by Luail, Ireland’s (new) National Dance Company.

Chicken // Wed 6–Sun 10 Nov // Lyric Theatre // A Kerry Cock shares his feathery story of getting a big break in the world of acting, winning awards, and sliding into ketamine addiction. A one woman show like no other. Expect chicken suits and clucking in this biographical tale and absurdist satire.

Lots more treats in the online festival programme.

Yerma – Lorca’s classic tale reimagined to rural Ireland with a novel staging (Tinderbox Theatre Company in Lyric Theatre until Sunday 3 November) #biaf24

Spanish poet and dramatist Federico García Lorca’s story about a childless woman living in rural Spain has been shifted to rural Ireland in Tinderbox’s exciting new production. Yerma is desperate for a child. But five years into her marriage, conception is illusive.

The women that Yerma meets in Lorca’s original text have morphed into her younger, more fertile sisters and her mammy. It all kicks off at a nephew’s christening in the parish church. The baby’s blanket symbolically unravels as Yerma’s sense of wellbeing collapses: everything gets too much and she retreats to the car park. From there, it’s a heady mix of partying, love, loss and violent retribution for holding secrets.

Tinderbox are building a reputation for reimaging and retelling plays in modern contexts. Their vibrant retelling of Eugène Ionesco Rhino in last year’s Belfast International Arts Festival wowed audiences and has been deservedly shortlisted for a UK Theatre Award.

Yerma boldly places a yellow Suzuki car (a pre-2003 Ignis) in one of two parking spaces painted out in the middle of the Lyric Naughton Studio stage, using the vehicle’s back passenger doors as the theatre’s wings, with an impossible number of characters appearing out of the back of the Tardis-like city car. Traversing locations, say from the hotel reception out into the car park, involves actors moving through the back of the car. It’s quite a funny concept at first, but the constant opening and closing of doors does wear think towards the end of the performance.

What doesn’t wear thin is the gripping performance of Caoimhe Farren as the angst-ridden Yerma. A woman who is maligned and judged by others, constantly blamed and shamed for her circumstances, while struggling to process her emotions and get to grips with her physical and mental health. Despite all this pressure being piled on top of Yerma, Farren still allows her character moments of comedy, laughing – even if it is hysterically – in the face of failure and criticism.

Niamh McAllister plays ‘Herself’, a happy-go-lucky single mum who is fighting through fatigue with her newly first born and has the most empathy for her big sister. Sophie Robinson – labelled ‘Mammy’s Favourite’ in the show’s programme which is styled as an order of service – has been busy breeding a big brood and is disappointed by and dismissive of Yerma. Hazel Clifford is the final sibling, a fine songstress who is untroubled by the lack of pockets in her dress and is endlessly pulling balloons, vapes and fertility-enhancing herbs out of her cleavage. And Mammy should not be forgotten. Laura Hughes portrays a powerhouse of a mother who can feed, mollycoddle, chastise and embolden her chicks before engaging in some dark arts as a siren-like enchantress.

The men in the show get actual names, though the script pencils their personas in much lighter detail. Yerma’s husband John (Stefan Dunbar) is a farmer, a gentle brute of a character who could be played more sympathetically at the start to allow a greater and more dramatic descent into his later hateful state of quietly immutable obstinance. Matthew Forsythe plays Victor, a mysterious man who drifts in and out of scenes, and the unrequited love of Yerma’s life.

On the surface, the play is about the pain of involuntary childlessness, but at a deeper level it also about what it’s like to be so trapped and isolated that you begin to doubt yourself. Yerma is a woman of integrity – unwilling to pursue a more charming and emotionally available man – and is as harsh on herself as her nagging sisters. In the spirit of so many playwrights throughout the ages, Lorca gleefully pushes a character’s sense of powerlessness past their breaking point, resulting in an almost inevitable Pyrrhic victory.

Tracey Lindsay’s car-centred set is bold, with the front bonnet opening up to deliver yet more surprises. Mary Tumelty’s stadium-like backlighting is complemented by a tight spotlight that brings the front seats of the car into focus, helped by changes in the texture of the soundscape and micing inside the car interior that directs the audience’s attention into the confined space before a word is said. Garth McConaghie once again plays with live sound effects, a karaoke sequence that delights, and some original songs that place the action in rural Ireland and showcases the great voices of the cast.

Tinderbox’s collaborative method gives the cast and the full creative team a lot of latitude to play with the text and the production during rehearsal. Patrick J O’Reilly pulls everything together as director and writer/adapter. Though the handprints of his producer, marketing and business development colleagues at Tinderbox can be seen all over the work too: it really feels like a team effort.

This imaginative reset of the story is rich and intriguing. However, the runtime exceeds some audience members’ bladders, triggering disruptive coming and going in the stalls. (Maybe not an artistic priority, but still a practical one that is worth considering.) The set with its crazy entrances and exits is novel and will be memorable. The story is compelling. The casting – particularly Farren in the titular role – is excellent. Some of the best moments come when the whole family clamber over the car in exhuberent celebration but I just wish that there was a greater gradient to the sense of doom and foreboding that would make this into a real helter skelter race to the bottom and the finale.

Yerma is produced by Tinderbox Theatre Company and is part of the upcoming Belfast International Arts Festival. The run continues in the Lyric Theatre until Sunday 3 November.

Photo credit: Carrie Davenport

Appreciated this review? Why not click on the Buy Me a Tea button!

Rose+Bud – one teen’s transition into student life and acceptance by themselves and others (Commedia of Errors)

Bud wants to be “born again” as Rose. Livinbg with a catastrophising mother in Ballynahinch, the bright lights of a fresh start at Derry’s Magee campus beckon. Can this transition into student life offer Rose acceptance and a chance to blossom? Can Bud ever really be left behind?

Rose Coogan and Conor Cupples play the two sides of Rose’s identity, alter egos at loggerheads with each other for much of the play as they overthink everything and verbalise their inner debates. The two actors also step into the shoes of a myriad of other friends and family. Coogan developed Rose+Bud’s autobiographical script through the Lyric Theatre’s 2021 New Playwright’s programme, a scheme which sadly seems now to be defunct.

The script and direction tend towards a constant stream of comedy, with the physicality of the bickering pair backed up with Garth McConaghie’s fabulous (and often flippant) soundtrack that accents specific lines of dialogue and makes the whole production unusually playful rather than worthy. Another unusual aspect is the questioning yet accepting maternal figure who isn’t totally comfortable but puts love above all else. Frankly, it’s a relief to have a parental ally portrayed on stage rather than the easier and all too familiar homophobic and transphobic stereotypes.

The audience cackle at the one-liners zinging out from the overly dense scrip. Some of the minor characters are better defined (fellow-student Clodagh) than others (beefcake Conor McDriscoll). Endings are notoriously difficult for autobiographical standup comedy and plays, but this production nails it. Rose+Bud finishes abruptly, but with a great final line that pleasingly suggests a new hope-filled equilibrium has been found.

Commedia of Errors was founded a decade ago by Clare McMahon and Benjamin Gould (who directs Rose+Bud). Its portfolio of work straddles a number of strands: riffing off Shakespearian works, using Commedia dell’arte techniques (most obviously wooden masks), and exploring transitions (both youthful and in more senior years). This production leans into the latter, but benefits from Gould’s ability to send up a serious subject without losing the integrity of the message. 

Rose+Bud is a coming-to-terms-with story rather than a coming-of-age tale. Cupples and Coogan are well matched as the different sides of the one protagonist. The balance of being vulnerable and exposed gently shifts over the hour-long performance as Rose is challenged to stop lying to herself and others.

Having debuted in Dublin Theatre Fringe and just finished a run at the Lyric Theatre in Belfast, Rose+Bud is heading up to The Playhouse in Derry on Thursday 10 and Friday 11 October.

Photo credit: Ewa Figaszewska

Appreciated this review? Why not click on the Buy Me a Tea button!

Shadowdock – experience Belfast’s past, present and future from a new perspective (part of Belfast2024 until Sunday 29 September)

Walk down the Maritime Mile, past the Odyssey, past Titanic Belfast, past the back of the film studios, past HMS Caroline, the distillery and the Science Park, and on a wee bit further towards the Pump House and you’ll hit the Thompson dry dock which once housed the Titanic.

Descend the 66 steps and you’ll be on the dock’s floor, looking up at the tiny figures of the ‘above deck’ audience leaning against the railings at this Belfast 2024 project. Before the sun sets you’ll spot the yellow H&W cranes peeping into view at the far end of the dry dock before darkness descends. You’ll marvel at the sine wave created along both sides the 850 foot long wall. (When it opened in 1911, it was the longest dry dock in the world, and when the doors were closed the adjoining jump house could empty the water in a mere hundred minutes.)

Technically, Shadowdock is a large-scale light and sound show, which takes the ‘below deck’ audiences 40 feet down from ground level and onto the bottom of the dry dock. Wearing headphones, you’ll hear a beautiful soundtrack, some narration, and begin to interact with the spotlights that shine up, down and through the enormous space.

You’ll grow used to the percussive musical track suggesting hammering, steel work and heavy construction. Your spine will shiver as you hear the roar of water in your headphones, wondering if the wall that now seals in the dry dock doors has failed. You’ll be tempted to sing along with Katie Richardson’s Into the Night anthem: sure, everyone’s wearing headphones and no one can hear in a silent disco!

Artistically, it’s like a guided meditation. Time set aside to connect with the sea and the city, with people and place. And to consider how the planet is changing in terms of climate and how that could the affect the ground that we’re standing on. It ponders size and perspective, the shadows and impact we leave on where we live and work.

It’s not quite what I expected. A different – and even more costly to stage – version of this event might have insisted on projecting video onto the stone walls of the dry dock, and retold the history of the dock. But then, is that really what Belfast needs in 2024?

We need to be reminded that if you shine powerful spotlights through the legs of members of the public in a dry dock, even before the narration offers a hint, they’ll have started to dance in the beams and play with the shadows in the walls. Left in a vacuum people will let their hair down to play and cavort. They’ll be moved to create and collaborate in community. They’ll work with what’s to hand to make something beautiful.

Shadowdock is a product of the imagination of designer Henry Sykes and Three’s Theatre Company (known for their site specific storytelling). It’s a product of the lighting talent of Conal Clapper and Alan Mooney, and the sonic skill of Katie Richardson. And it’s an exceptional achievement for Three’s Theatre Company’s unflappable producer and artistic director Anna Leckey, the largest scale project undertaken, yet one that builds on eight years of productions that have gone before.

While tickets have sold out for the ‘below deck’ experience, there’s still availability to be up top where you can watch the show and hear a tailored version of the soundscape and narration.

Photo credits: Belfast City Council/Twitter/X, alaninbelfast, Shadowdock/Instagram

Appreciated this review? Why not click on the Buy Me a Tea button!

Ciaran’s Bartlett’s Phantom of the Opera House – a dark and filthy evening rolling in the aisles (Grand Opera House until Saturday 28 September)

Ciaran Bartlett kicked off his week-long stint at the Grand Opera House this evening. True to the show title’s promise, Phantom at the Opera House begins with a touch of Lloyd-Webber’s musical which quickly morphs into a spot of Meat Loaf. Soon he’s talking sausage rolls, Patrick Swayze and twisted nipples.

A couple of days shy of his 38th birthday, Bartlett has been battling vestibular neuritis for much of this year. The prolonged bouts of vertigo may have influenced his ‘deep dive’ into darker material. Last week’s loss of a wisdom tooth has already become embedded in the routine.

Dressed in comfortable green trackie bottoms and a coarse black tea-shirt, Bartlett periodically wanders back and forth from his faraway guitar stand. Some of his songs are over before they’ve started. Others are replete with big production values, rich backing tracks and effects. A starry backdrop at the back of the stage adds a touch of class to proceedings. The flexible backlighting keeps the audience’s faces lit so the comedian can always gauge their reaction.

We’re a first night crowd, so there’s some conscious self-editing going on when throw things off with our clapping and tittering. Though I don’t think small rewrites will do anything to spare his mother’s blushes when she attends tomorrow evening. While the first half is dark, the whole show is as filthy as you could imagine.

Podcast listeners (and watchers) will be familiar with Bartlett’s wife Chloe and his musical mucker Jonny Martin. Fine musical tributes to both are included in the show. Bartlett has a fine voice, a background in crooning over his guitar in back-alley pubs, and would make a great pantomime dame at Christmas.

The front rows of the audience reveal their vulnerabilities as Bartlett channels his inner Derren Brown. Few topics are untouchable, and he carefully steps over the potential landmines presented by Jeffrey Donaldson, the McCanns, trans athletes … and even exploding pagers when prompted by the audience. There’s even a rather hangry encounter with the legendary Joe Lindsay!

Bartlett’s post-interval musical improvs based on suggestions by punters sadly run dry after just one or two stanzas, abruptly stopping as he turns to riff on another topic. But hey, he’s more confident and able to generate mirth on demand than the audience. And he made me laugh: I’m a tough audience that survived two hours of John Bishop in the SSE Arena this time seven years ago without a single guffaw.

Phantom at the Opera House continues in the Grand Opera House until Saturday 28 September.

Photo credit: Instagram/@andrearussell_xo

Appreciated this review? Why not click on the Buy Me a Tea button!

Eugene Onégin – in which Tatyana stands up to a crushing cad (NI Opera at Grand Opera House until 21 September)

Dreamy young Tatyana falls for the friend of her older sister’s fiancé when the two men visit her rural family home. Fond of romantic fiction, smitten Tatyana spends the night penning a letter full of passion that her nanny arranges to be delivered to Onégin. He crushes her infatuation declaring that he is too flighty to be worth marrying. Not long after, to dismiss rumours about his relationship with Tatyana, he flirts with her sister Olga, arousing seething jealousy in his mate Lensky. Mercury rises and after a duel, Onégin flees, travelling aimlessly, haunted by his actions, and apparently full of remorse. Some years later, by chance he encounters Tatyana once more, now a married woman of nobility. Can she forgive the patronising cad’s contemptuous behaviour (that led to him killing her sister’s fiancé)?

Tchaikovsky’s music and libretto retains the poetic nature of Alexander Pushkin’s novel which was written in verse. Cameron Menzies’ production of Eugene Onégin for NI Opera frames the story as a series of remembrances of an old woman (Anne Flanagan). The actions of her carers and cleaners become tangled up in vivid hallucinations about old times when a figure violently interrupted her young adulthood.

Ukrainian-born baritone Yuriy Yurchuk is back reinterpreting a familiar role. His Eugene Onégin towers above most of the rest of the cast and conveys a self-absorbed aloofness. Norman Reinhardt impresses as Vladamir Lensky, with acting and vocals to bring his first and second act arias to life. Their snowy duel is somewhat unconvincing, neither brimming with drama nor staged in slow motion atop of three trestle tables.

Mary McCabe plays the overthinking, romantic Tatyana who pours out her heart before accepting Onégin’s harsh response. The talented Downpatrick soprano finally makes her operatic principal mainstage debut in this production and sustains a sense of inner anguish during the elongated ‘letter aria’ in Act One (assisted by the complementary acting of her older self). But it’s the final scene between Tatyana and Onégin that really brings out McCabe’s fieriness and passionate presence. Her mature performance on opening night was rewarded with sustained applause from an appreciative home audience.

Sarah Richmond has great fun with the role of the older and sometimes maligned sister Olga, with playful shoulder shrugs before Onégin’s misbehaviour complicates her life. Another two Northern Ireland mezzo-sopranos play Madame Larina (Carolyn Dobbin) who is mum to Olga and Tatyana, and nanny Filipevna (Jenny Bourke) who was married off at age 13.

Niall McKeever’s set is cryptic. Part barn, part warehouse, part care home, part stately home. It’s a canvass onto which McKeever can project black and white video imagery to heighten the sense of rural living, parties and snow (which works the least effectively). Tube lighting hangs overhead. One fitting descends to become a seat … and teases that it might become a swing (but doesn’t). Without any forced perspective, some of the set’s structural beams hide the recessed doors for some sections of the audience, leaving lighting designer Kevin Treacy to indicate when they open using sunshine and shadows.

Down in the pit, the Ulster Orchestra are absent and NI Opera have assembled their own orchestra for this production, under the baton of Dominic Limburg. Gillian Lennox dexterous use of colour palettes particularly pays off in Act Two when an unexpectedly spritely crowd-pleasing French crooner (Monsieur Triquet played by Aaron O’Hare) – a long-haired dandy with more than a whiff of former MP Michael Fabricant – arrives at the party to sing to Tatyana surrounded by a pastel-dressed chorus. Tatyana’s white fur hat in Act Three is another visual success.

Director Cameron Menzies doesn’t shy away from bold creative decisions and has been longing to stage this opera for some time. But the production risks a number of artistic compromises. The doting Tatyana is dressed in relatively modern slacks, yet her reminisces involve people dressed in a style from well before her birth. When peasants arrive to celebrate the harvest they are wearing fabulously sinister, oversized masks and carrying enormous pitchforks. The visuals are fantastic, but feel completely at odds with everything else in the opera, perhaps only working if seen through the eyes of older Tatyana’s senility. A sung line about “coming indoors” when Lensky and Onégin are already standing in the middle of the room also momentarily falls flat.

“Why’s it not called Tatyana?” asked one audience member leaving the theatre to walk up Great Victoria Street. That’ll be a matter of nineteenth century male creative sensibilities. Despite the title, the heroine did deservedly get top billing in the (anarchic) curtain call(s), and while the title and the story aren’t well known outside operatic circles, it was pleasing to see a production which could showcase so much local talent: not just the four leading ladies, but also casting baritones Matthew Jeffrey and Seamus Brady in named roles.

The interval comes after the best part of 90 minutes, with a shorter second half. Starting at 30 minutes earlier at 7pm and sticking to the old-fashioned but original seven scenes over three acts format with two intervals would have some merit.

Staging an opera is a huge enterprise, with larger sets, more intricate costumes and wigs, more musicians, longer run times, bigger casts to corral, and a very small number of performances to bed everything in. Ambitions are set high and NI Opera once again have pulled off a memorable production. But there’s still room for the intimate affairs of the heart to explode more fully onto the stage in true operatic style.

Eugene Onégin is back in the Grand Opera House with performances on Thuesday 17, Thursday 19 and Saturday 21 September.

Photo credit: Neil Harrison

Appreciated this review? Why not click on the Buy Me a Tea button!

The Doppler Effect – revised and rebalanced but still a mesmerising experience (The Belfast Ensemble at The MAC until Saturday 14 September)

The Doppler Effect was the second production from The Belfast Ensemble that I reviewed. Back in October 2017, it was a mesmerising experience to stand and move around the outside of an unseated theatre space, while live music was performed in a central cube, with a figure on a central platform interpreting the words being spoken by an actor. Video was projected onto the translucent skin of the cube.

“Any one aspect of this show could hold my attention. I got lost in the music and then the words and then the movement and the imagery. There is a lot going on, but it’s all complementary and well balanced and no particular discipline is allowed to dominate …

“The Doppler Effect is genre-busting: musical theatre accompanied by dance, some narrative and some of the best visuals I’ve seen in a theatre. The genius of The Belfast Ensemble is that together the artists produce high quality, imaginative work that is riddled with enough layers of meaning that you are left wanting to hit rewind and go back to the beginning to breathe it all in again.”

The promenade style of performance – where the audience are encouraged to move around the space and look through the set and projections from different angles – puts on onus on the audience to help craft the story.

The piece returned in 2018 and has been substantially revised in 2024 for performances at the Festival de Marseille (in French) and this weekend in The MAC (in English).

The most common example of the Doppler effect is the perceived change of pitch when a vehicle with its siren blaring approaches you and then passes into the distance. And there’s a sense that the message of the eponymous show has shifted in its journey over the last six or more years.

While my grasp of the ‘plot’ could be somewhat opaque when leaving previous performances, in this latest instantiation, Conor Mitchell has substantially redeveloped the queer storyline which now sits in an unmissable layer above the music and the visuals. It makes everything easier to follow, but I nearly miss the sense of ambiguity!

We watch Ruaidhrí Maguire move in tandem with the character’s inner monologue which is voiced with incredible precision by Abigail McGibbon. Appropriately, we’re travelling through a day with a student who is a physics whizz. His inner musings on the people he meets are quite shocking: though can any of us honestly say that we don’t make equally unvoiced and prejudiced commentary as we wander through life?

Susie Griffin, Aoife Magee, Elias Rooney and Gillian McCutcheon play Mitchell’s score live, hunched in the lower corners of the cube. Sets of speakers in the corners and sides of the staging, as well as behind the audience feed the layers of music and narration into the space. The sound design and mixing (Aaron Ross and Megan Joyce) is bright and intimate, deliberately preserving the sound of lips and breathing. Against one wall of the theatre, Gavin Peden sits drumming his fingers of one hand on the table, counting the beaths in the ever-changing time signatures while cuing the change of visuals with his other hand.

The whole production could be reduced to a single computer running the lights, videos, recorded score and narration, with just the dancer performing live. But the joy of The Doppler Effect is that each night is live. Each performance has the risk of someone dropping a beat. The audience and the creative team are in the moment. It’s thrilling to be part of, particularly in a final moment when the visual break out from the box and fill more of the space.

Back in 2017, I wrote:

“For this showcase of local imagination to receive no funding heaps shame upon the vision of arts funding bodies who should expect this work to travel internationally.”

Everything produced by The Belfast Ensemble has an international feel to it, pushing boundaries of form and practice, mashing music and light and video together with performance in unorthodox ways. There’s often a very European cultural sensibility – less staid, less evolutionary – to the work. So it’s good that the funding situation is better (though still in no way sufficient for the ambition that is on show) and the productions are finding ways to be performed outside Northern Ireland. (I nearly wish they’d run a few minutes of the show in French this week to demonstrate yet another example of the team’s versatility.)

The final performance of The Doppler Effect is in The MAC on Saturday 14 September at 7.30pm.

Appreciated this review? Why not click on the Buy Me a Tea button!

Wasted – no money, no phone, no keys, no friend, no memory, and maybe no way of knowing what happened (Bruiser Theatre, touring)

While quite a number of recent theatre productions have covered with the issue of consent, few scripts deal with it as deftly as Kat Woods’ Wasted.

Emma and Kate were out on the town when they met brothers Oli and Charlie. A lot of craic was had and much alcohol was consumed. The group got split up. With no money, no phone, no keys, and no best friend, Emma went back home with Oli, a guardian angel helping a damsel in distress. The next morning she’s not certain what all happened, but she’s pretty certain her body’s telling her that something happened, and that a morning after pill would be a necessary precaution.

Having established the hazy events of a night out, Wasted jumps back and forth with a very modern yet accessible non-linear approach that sees Kate confronting Emma with the likelihood that she was raped, while Oli tries to mould his grasp of consent being a feeling to the cold light of day truth of his actions.

Sharon Duffy plays Emma, a young woman who is somewhat happy-go-lucky, realistic about her overcapacity to consume, and doesn’t see herself as a victim. Warren McCook plays the Oli, who isn’t an out and out predator, but is scared that he won’t be able to escape the long-term consequences of his actions. Together, they are incredible.

Two chairs and a table are rearranged to establish the different locations. The actors’ movements are frenetic. Their lines whizz past like bullets as they jump in and out of various supporting characters. Bruiser’s famed physical theatre techniques see the pair rewinding and fast forwarding through the night out and the morning after, at one point creating a night club strobe effect without needing lights to flash. Some scenes repeat with new details coming to light. Watch out for the roller disco moves without needing wheels!

The pace is full on, requiring stacks of kinetic energy and commitment from the word go. There’s no room for error, either on stage or behind the scenes with the stage manager who has to be totally in sync with the actors to create the effects. It’s hard to imagine the level of drilling required to get the choreography so exact: at times, it feels like a frantic synchronised dance with added words. Garth McConaghie’s soundscape mixes sweeping musical themes with distressed sound effects to enhance the emotional turmoil. Eoin Robinson’s letterbox video adds subtle reminders about phone callers and police interviews.

Driving back from the Newtownabbey Theatre At The Mill venue I passed close to The American Bar where I first saw Pintsized Production’s version of Wasted back in 2018. Nuala Donnelly was the director, and she is assistant director beside director Lisa May on this Bruiser production. The 2024 set’s footprint is nearly larger than the upstairs of the original pub! Yet the claustrophobic feeling of heads turning and lives spinning out of control is retained.

This afternoon, the PSNI have been tweeting out messages aimed at students heading off to college. One deals with FRIES: consent should be Freely given, Reversible, Informed, Enthusiastic, and Specific. Wasted powerfully portrays a young woman and a young man who at first don’t comprehend (as the play explains) that someone’s “capacity to consent may evaporate before a complainant becomes unconscious”. But within 24 hours, they both learn a lot about themselves and each other.

Wasted is a sweaty and sweary examination of consensual sex within the context of a one-night stand and binge drinking culture. It’s a vital and breathtaking piece of theatre, that years later still feels painfully relevant in a place where instances of assault are still excused by laddish behaviour and society at large struggles to see respect and consent as priorities in every situation.

Bruiser are touring Wasted through theatres in Downpatrick (Friday 6 September), Omagh (Thursday 19), Armagh (Saturday 21) and Belfast’s The MAC (Wednesday 25 to Sunday 29). Importantly, they are also taking the production into schools and colleges, to prompt conversations about the issues the show raises before people are harmed and the criminal justice system has to comes into play.

Appreciated this review? Why not click on the Buy Me a Tea button!

Reawakening – the return of a prodigal daughter poses more questions than it answers (Queen’s Film Theatre from Friday 13 September)

Clare Reed walked out of her family home aged 14, never to return. For ten years, Mary and John have lived with her absence, one throwing themselves into work as a classroom assistant looking after other people’s children, the other working as an electrician by day while combing homeless centres by night to try to trace anyone who might recognise the girl in the last picture he had of his daughter. Mary comes home one day to find a woman sitting on the wall outside their house. John has so many questions, but good answers aren’t forthcoming.

Reawakening is a character study of two parents and a young woman. It’s about a mother whose need to love a child makes her reluctant to confront the truth staring her in the face. How a young person longs to live in the safety of a family home. How a father struggles to balance his desire for truth and explanation with what’s best for his wife.

Erin Doherty is trapped in the middle of this fractured domesticity, playing a young woman who has been lied to, abused, and now wants to reconstruct her life. John (played by Jared Harris) lashes out with incredible outbursts of rage. Yet later in the film, the camera lingers on his emotionally fraught face as he silently listens to a revelatory account of Clare’s life. Juliet Stevenson offers a multi-layered portrayal of a mother whose grief is mixed with guilt and longing. She’s bubbly and broken, all at the same time.

Together these parents have to deal with the consequences of their action and inaction, in the past and going forward. Maybe there’s an unorthodox way of rationalising what’s now real, and a path that everyone can follow? But that’s bit of a stretch. Little of what happens in Reawakening feels terribly believable, which sometimes interferes with the psychological tension that screenwriter/director Virginia Gilbert is building. The audience are asked to suppose that the mental anguish of loss could be so great that two people would become so utterly irrational that they could continue to talk to the police while not admitting that a child has returned home. The fear of continued media intrusion is offered as a half-hearted excuse. But it really doesn’t wash.

Ultimately, the film feels like watching the first two parts of a gloomy television drama without ever seeing the brilliant conclusion. The acting is more gripping than the storytelling. Reawakening is being screened in Queen’s Film Theatre from Friday 13 September.

 

Appreciated this review? Why not click on the Buy Me a Tea button!