Lesbian Space Princess // Ulster Says No: The Year of Disorder – Belfast Film Festival #bff25

From the blurb in the Belfast Film Festival programme, it was clear that Thursday evening’s Australian animation Lesbian Space Princess had a lot of creativity behind it: “Straight White Maliens” kidnapping the ex-girlfriend of a royal princess who sets off on a quest to get her back. The concept of “maliens” is genius.

The witty script throws in a lot of clever dialogue, along with universal observations around sexism and reflections on lesbian experience in relationships. White men complain about once being the “most powerful beings in the universe … but we’ve been forgotten”. Their “chick magnet” did not function as intended. Queer love does not run smooth.

Feature debut writers/directors Emma Hough Hobbs and Leela Varghese have deserved utter confidence their material is good enough that it only needs to be said once. (Office Politics, cough.) It’s all very tongue in cheek, so don’t be surprised to find a Royal Pussy living on the “famously hard to find” planet Clitopolis.

Despite being a lesbian whose coming of age has publicly stalled, self doubt-laden Saira (voiced by Shabana Azeez) steps out of her comfort zone to fly off in a Problematic Ship (brought to life with thick sarcasm by Richard Roxburgh) to rescue the much cooler Kiki (Bernie Van Tiel). A former gay-pop idol Willow (Gemma Chua-Tran) lends more than a helping hand.

The animation is psychedelic and contributes to the surreal nature of the film. The stereotypes are well drawn. The original songs (Varghese) are whimsical yet beautiful. Profound commentary is wrapped up in quirky scenes. A tiny penis is (frankly deservedly and comically) harmed in the making of this film.

The small audience in The Avenue Cinema made a lot of noise as we chuckled at the gags. (It was my first visit to the upmarket cinema and I still haven’t got over the table lights staying on, people ordering skinny chips and mushroom pizzas to their seats, and the sound of people chewing throughout the first fifteen minutes of the film.)

When its festival run finally concludes, I’d hope that the riotous and inventive gem Lesbian Space Princess will return to somewhere like the Queen’s Film Theatre sometime next year.

Saturday afternoon saw the screening of Ulster Says No: The Year of Disorder. It’s the product of a partnership between the UTV Archive and Northern Ireland Screen. Director Evan Marshall combed through two years of UTV news reports to craft a 90 minute that charts the build-up and eventual decline of loyalist and unionist protests and unrest in reaction to the London and Dunlin governments signed the Anglo-Irish Agreement.

It’s the mid-1980s and Dennis Taylor was potting snooker balls while Barry McGuigan was knocking out opponents in the boxing ring. The Sinclair C5 was launched to a sceptical public. The two governments hoped that their agreement would foster an atmosphere where peace could grow. The launch wasn’t met with raised eyebrows, but active protest by loyalists and unionists (and rejection by Sinn Féin who saw it as “the formal recognition of the partition of Ireland”).

Strangely I’m more aware of the Falklands conflict in 1982 than this period of local history, despite growing up in a house where Good Morning Ulster was the soundtrack to breakfast. 

We watch politicians warn that violence is inevitable one night, only to condemn the actions of people they distance themselves from the next morning. A picture builds up of political anger that was channelled into mobilising members of the public out onto the streets. Violence broke out at the edges of every mass rally in Belfast. Unionist politicians blame republicans and the NIO’s “dirty tricks department” for incidents of loyalist violence.

We see the owner of SS Moore inspecting the damage to his Chichester Street premises which was looted for golf balls to throw at the police. (The sports store permanently closed this week.)

There is much talk of “quislings” (enemy collaborators), a term which has fallen out of the political lexicon. Fresh faced politicians who are now veterans are seen at every major event: curly haired Jim Wells, Nigel Dodds, Peter and Iris Robinson, Jim Allister, Sammy Wilson, Jeffrey Donaldson with a terrible bowl haircut. But it’s the twin figures of Ian Paisley and Jim Molyneaux who provide the drum beat of the 18 months of fevered protest. Paisley calls the Secretary of State Tom King a “yellow bellied coward”.

The DUP leader opines that “this is a war … this is no garden party or picnic … This could come to hand-to-hand fighting .. we’re on the verge of a civil war in Northern Ireland” would also call for the “organisation” and “mobilisation” of forces opposed to the Agreement. Later, loyalist leaders would say there would be “no violence in this phase of the protest” but warnings were also given that unionists needed to be “prepared to go to violence” if necessary to stand up to the continued implementation of the Agreement.

Alongside the backdrop of ‘ordinary’ attacks and murder in The Troubles, this new set of politically-motivated unionist events are serious – Keith White was shot in the face with a plastic bullet and died in hospital on 14 April 1986 – but aspects of what unfolds is also pretentious and unserious.

Unionist politicians take over the phone switchboard in Parliament Buildings and barricade themselves in, even intercepting a call from a Cabinet minister to a Belfast colleague. From their vantage point outside the building, the camera crew’s microphone picks up the sound of the internal door being broken down.

John McMichael (Ulster Democratic Party and prominent figure in the UDA) swerves reporters’ questions but indirectly makes clear that violence may be the only option. There is talk of “laying down lives rather than surrender”. The 400-strong border village of Clontibret is invaded on 7 August 1986 and “held” for around half an hour. unarmed Gardaí were beaten up.

Peter Robinson was arrested and eventually fined 17,500 punts. Peter Robinson is also seen among those wearing a red beret in an Ulster Resistance parade in Portadown. The end credits note that guns imported by Ulster Resistance were used in many murders and attacks in subsequent years.

While the politicians are most often seen and heard on screen, UTV journalist Ivan Little’s reporting stands out. His rhetorical flourishes provide a lot of colour and prick the pomposity of some incidents. The hanging of mayoral chains on a barbed wire fence erected at Stormont Castle signifying the “death of democracy” was “somewhat undermined when [they were] retrieved 15 minutes later”.

The footage from the time was captured in a standard definition 4:3 aspect ratio. Stylistically, it’s unfortunate that the captions sometimes ignore those boundaries and extend into the black bars at the side.

Editor Paul McClintock does a fine job in cutting down reports to pick out the most salient points. While journalism is only ever “the first rough draft of history”, these clips from the UTV archive paint a picture of the mood and depth of feeling in late 1985 and throughout 1986. School history and politics teachers will be keen to get access to the snappy reprise of this important period.

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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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Imagine! Festival of Ideas and Politics (18-24 March) … a preview of the more overtly arty events #ImagineBelfast

Happy birthday Imagine! Festival of Ideas and Politics. Ten years of delighting, educating, and engaging the grey matter of citizens of Belfast and beyond. Running between Monday 18 and Sunday 24 March, there are more than a hundred films, talks, gigs, walking tours, exhibitions, panels, workshops and theatre shows. This year’s strapline seems very apt: top enterbrainment.

I’ve posted on Slugger O’Toole about some of the policy and political discussions and panels. But what about the more arty events in the bulging programme?

Shoot Belfast’s studio and gallery space on Chapel Lane is hosting two plays.

Mother! The Story of Mother Jones // Tuesday 19 and Wednesday 20 at 7pm // A play about once the most dangerous woman in America. Mary Harris "Mother" Jones was 9 years old when she emigrated from Cork to America. Overcoming inconceivable personal tragedy, she became a fearless advocate for workers’ rights and child labour law reform., testifying before the US Congress in 1917. Prosecuting attorneys and corporate landlords described Mother Jones as “the most dangerous woman in America”. Written by Mike Broemmel, Mother! Starts DJ De Jong as Mother Jones and is directed by Greg West and produced by produced by Jennifer Dempsey, Colorado Theater in Non-Traditional Places (TINTS). Their team of writers, actors and directors create original scripts that highlight individuals whose achievements have been under-recognised.

I’m Harvey Milk! // Thursday 21 and Friday 22 at 7pm // A play about Harvey Milk – the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California. As 1977 San Francisco City Supervisor, Milk battled against anti-gay initiatives and sponsored bills banning discrimination in public accommodations, housing, and employment on the basis of sexual orientation. Described as a “visionary who imagined a righteous world inside his head and then set about to create it for real for all of us,” Milk was assassinated by co-worker Dan White who claimed the so-called Twinkie Defense. Starring Ben Beasley plays Harvey Milk. Written by Mike Broemmel and directed by Greg West.

Storytelling as Activism // Tuesday 19 at 1pm in Accidental Theatre // What happens when we encounter injustice? There are traditional routes to righting wrongs, although the outcome is often less than satisfactory. When we look to the arts, we discover that creatives have always been telling stories that pique our imagination and stir our sense of morality and empathy. Amanda Verlaque wrote the play This Sh*t Happens All the Time in response to a homophobic hate crime. (I reviewed a rehearsed reading of the play by Nicky Harley back in the 2019 Outburst Arts Festival. And returned when it was staged in the Lyric Theatre as a co-production with Imagine! in 2022.Now Nicky Harley returns to the central role this March in the Grand Opera House’s studio theatre.) At this event, Amanda will use her play to guide the audience through the importance of recording and sharing LGBTQIA+ stories to maintain visibility and encourage justice.

The Art and Science of Songwriting – Muse or Maths? // Monday 18 March at 8pm in Crescent Arts Centre // Chuck Berry said it all came down to mathematics, but you don’t hear people singing Pythagoras’ Theorem down the pub, do you? Join Nuala McKeever for a relaxed, fun evening of conversation and performance with singer-songwriters Anthony Toner and Brigid O’Neill about what makes a great song that stays with people for years and decades. As well as performing some of their best-loved songs, Brigid and Anthony reveal the secrets of their own writing and discuss the work of their favourite artists as they explore the nature of their craft – is it inspiration, perspiration or computation?

When Music and Politics Collide // Wednesday 20 March at 8pm in QUB Harty Room // What’s music’s role in shaping and reflecting the political landscape? Songs of protest. Becoming the theme tune to a particular era’s zeitgeist. Inspiring change? Or celebrating a political movement. Lifting a message off the page and bringing it to life. Musical performances and a panel discussion with Dr David Robb (Reader in Music at Queen’s University Belfast, Joby Fox (musician and activist) and Charlotte Dryden (CEO of the Oh Yeah Centre).

Cultural Diplomacy and the Art of Soft Power // Thursday 21 at 3pm in The Black Box // What has been and is the role of art and artists in shaping Ireland’s international image, north and south? What is the role of cultural diplomacy in a polarised and divided world? How can cultural diplomacy pave the way to wider cooperation and dialogue, and foster a better understanding between cultures and nations? A talk on the Art of Soft Power by Evgeniya Ravtsova (International Programmes Manager at the Victoria and Albert Museum) will be followed by a panel discussion with Sheena Barrett (Irish Museum of Modern Art), Cian Smyth (Ulster Presents) and Richard Williams (Northern Ireland Screen).

Poetry and Politics: Paul Muldoon in conversation with William Crawley // Friday 22 at 8pm in Crescent Arts Centre // County Armagh-born Pulitzer-winning poet Paul Muldoon will examine the relationship between poetry and politics and the challenges of addressing contentious and ‘difficult' political and cultural issues. The conversation will be interspersed with readings.

How many Bardic Harpers does it take to change a lightbulb? // Friday 22 at 8pm in Crescent Arts Centre // If serious poetry isn’t your thing, then join Ursula Burns at the same time in a different part of the same venue for a walk through 30 years of dangerous harping. The harp is an iconic part of identity on this island. From the Bunting Manuscripts of the Irish Harpers Assemble to Guinness, Politics, Weddings, and Funerals. Wafting through the mists of time, Ursula asks, “what got lost in our harping history?” Ursula will explore her relationship with Belfast through song-writing and finish her talk with a performance of new instrumental compositions that demonstrate her unique technique.

Henry Normal and Nigel Planer // Sunday 24 at 8pm in The Black Box // Festival regular Henry Normal returns for an evening of poetry, stories, jokes, Q&A, fun, knitwear and surprises. Accompanied by Nigel Planer, a prolific poet and author, probably best known as Neil in The Young Ones. As well as novels, plays and TV and radio scripts, Nigel has been writing and publishing poetry for over fifty years.

Just a sample from the full programme available on the Imagine! Belfast festival website.

The Man Who Swallowed A Dictionary (Green Shoot Productions at Lyric Theatre until 10 September + NI tour)

Robert Niblock’s new play about the life of David Ervine follows the east Belfast man from cradle to grave. As the title suggests, it riffs off Ervine’s fabled wordiness and uses a neat device to pause and reflect on the definition of various words, sometimes leaving it to the audience to put two and two together, sometimes getting in a round of laughs, like the light-hearted examples of ‘polarity’.

The Man Who Swallowed A Dictionary quickly reveals Ervine’s mother’s fervour for Paisley, and his dad’s more secular and left wing leanings towards the Northern Ireland Labour Party. He falls in love with Jeanette. But deadly days like Bloody Friday also push him towards making a life-changing commitment to a paramilitary organisation. Mates Bo and Junior follow him through the drama of his adolescence, into the UVF, in and out of prison, and are still knocking about the east Belfast bar when he becomes a politician, leading the Progressive Unionist Party.

Actor Paul Garrett is a great fit for the role, a skilled mimic – he has Rev Chris Hudson’s accent down a tee – and at a distance visually similar to Ervine, balding with a bushy moustache and attired in a dark grey suit, tie and pipe.

David Craig’s set is simple but hefty: two enormous open books over which Garrett clambers. While it’s a great three-level playground providing height and good places to sit, the amount of movement in some of the shorter scenes tends to distract. The script is replete with zinging one-liners, working class and sometimes loyalist retorts that wouldn’t have gone amiss in the Dundonald Liberation Army parody plays that this show’s director Matthew McElhinney stars in.

The words and influence of Gusty Spence – who renounced violence while incarcerated – are also significant to the story and add to the play’s authenticity. While in Long Kesh, Ervine was challenged by Spence’s logic that republicans needed to be understood and that ultimately progress would come from dialogue rather than conflict. The UVF’s murderous attack at Loughinisland is condemned on stage by Ervine, but it’s a point of contention in nearly every Troubles drama whether enough emphasis is given to acknowledging the bloody deeds of paramilitary organisations before praising their political representatives’ pursuit of peace. The script does highlight the military and political differences between the UVF and PUP in the years before the 1994 loyalist ceasefire. Lives were undoubtedly saved, though many lives were also needlessly cut short.

The Man Who Swallowed A Dictionary is an interesting companion piece to Owen McCafferty’s Agreement which ran on the same Lyric stage throughout April. That seven-handed play largely ignored the role of the smaller political parties in the talks that led to the Belfast Agreement.

This new play has real heart and a lot of potential. It’s unusual to be invited to review what was almost a preview performance on Monday, its first night in front of a paying audience. A disco soundtrack somewhat over-powers the description of the plenary session called by Senator George Mitchell at the conclusion of the talks in Stormont’s Castle Buildings. And the constant walking around the pile of books can leave the actor in the shade. But the rough edges should be smoothed off within a couple of performances.

The show’s sucker punch comes towards the end of the second act when personal tragedy hits the Ervine family. Less than three years later David Ervine himself is dead. Tributes at the time by the UUP’s Reg Empey described him as “a unique, charismatic and uncharacteristically spin-free politician” while the SDLP’s Mark Durkan said that “David emerged from a paramilitary past to pursue a peaceful future”. Hearing Ervine’s own words played at the end of the play is a powerful reminder of how keenly his absence has been felt from Northern Ireland politics over the last 16 years, particularly with the constipated process of standing down paramilitary structures.

The Man Who Swallowed A Dictionary is playing at the Lyric Theatre until 10 September, before touring through Larne, east Belfast, Downpatrick, Coalisland, Newry, Ballymena, Lisburn, Newtownabbey and Derry. Say a little prayer for the set builders ...

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Agreement – ambitious in scale, a triumph of script, performance and education (Lyric Theatre until Saturday 22 April)

The protracted negotiations that led to the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement took place in Castle Buildings, buried deep in the Stormont Estate. Owen McCafferty’s reimagined study of the final few days of the talks removes the walls – along with most of the participants – and plants the action on Conor Murphy’s clamshell set. A wide, open circular stage is positioned under a suspended sky whose clouds make way for calendar reminders in case anyone has lost track of time. The sense of everyone being trapped begins as you enter the theatre and the usher reminds you that there’s no interval and a strict no readmittance policy. The cast rarely leave the cauldron of contestation during the 105-minute performance. We’re all there until there’s agreement … or the talks collapse.

Agreement – note the absence of the definite article – uses seven well-known figures to illustrate how people can come to the point of being able to agree. What has to change to allow consensus and compromise to transpire? Can moments of raw humanity heal and build trust? When frustrations and concerns are repeated ad nauseum, what is it that unlocks a sense that they have not only been voiced, but also listened to?

Richard Croxford portrays George Mitchell as the unshowy ringmaster, a realist and a survivor of other negotiations who lives by the motto that “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed”. With Paisley self-exiled from the talks, David Trimble represents unionism with Patrick O’Kane demonstrating the UUP leader’s irascible impatience, his principle-driven stance on major issues, and how his leadership is increasingly isolated from some vocal parts of unionism.

Since Agreement isn’t a recreation of the talks – which were dominated by papers being passed between groups and bilateral meetings rather than occasions when everyone could heckle each other – it’s forgivable that the cast of characters has been simplified. However, it’s unfortunate that loyalist parties who remained in the talks and the Women’s Coalition are not really mentioned as the Agreement under the theatrical spotlight would neither have had the shape nor the import without their participation.

The lack of women in the narrative does though have the effect of emphasising Mo Mowlam’s contribution. When her role in the talks is upstaged by the arrival of Tony Blair (Rufus Wright) – a moment that is brilliantly lit by Mary Tumelty – watch where Mowlam silently carries the contents of her desk, getting on with the work despite the deliberate slight. Yet the Secretary of State’s appreciation of the dynamics of the talks surpasses her prize-winning boss. If anything, Andrea Irvine could make Mowlam even more vulgar and still not be accused of taking liberties with her character who revelled in informality and loved to shock.

Packy Lee creates a bearded Sinn Féin leader who walks the fine line between serious and smirk, leaving the heavy lifting to John Hume, but leaving everyone wondering whether the republican movement’s off-stage council will eventually ask him to quit the talks if plans for the early release of prisoners isn’t to their liking.

McCafferty channels the inner teacher in the way he writes John Hume, making the character repeatedly step forward to check the audience are still sure of the difference between Strands 1 and 2 of the institutions. (Strand 3 becomes a running joke.) Dan Gordon puts in an incredible performance as Hume, with his final line in the play an almost perfect recreation of the SDLP leader’s intonation. But it’s the scene where an under-pressure Trimble finally admits to himself that he can trust Hume that unlocks the Agreement.

While Wright’s Blair is played for parody, emphasising the British Prime Minister’s showboating and lack of handle on the detail of the negotiations – back in 1998, advisor Jonathan Powell and, to a lesser extent, spin-doctor Alastair Campbell were doing the heavy lifting – Ronan Leahy’s Bertie Ahern is an unpretentious Taoiseach who is fully committed to the political talks in a week already burdened with the death of his mother. A particularly vicious argument between grief-stricken Ahern and an unwell Mowlam who is facing her own mortality feels slightly out of proportion, but the human moment of reconciliation that follows is spectacular theatre.

Should the audience ever begin to take the recreation too seriously, there’s room for the voice of Clinton to throw some presidential glitter over proceedings, Dylan Quinn’s choreographed fantasy dance sequence, and a deliberately opinion-rich and partial news bulletin (so good to hear Ann-Marie Foster’s voice again) to shake us back into this fantasy world. While familiarity with the political principals adds a lot to the detail of the production, it will possibly also distract local theatregoers from the wider lessons about how agreements are made. They’re in the script which was originally commissioned by Michael Grandage Company and may shine through more strongly if Agreement is ever staged in Great Britain or further afield.

Charlotte Westenra has contributed much more to this production than just directing the performance. Her five years of research informed the playwright’s script and that investment pays off in this rich, playful yet profound play that captures the essence of the exhausting process and takes us inside the headspace of the politicians and what drives their negotiating positions without ever resorting to the crowd-pleasing hagiography present in some other dramatical commemorations. After more than an hour of (literally) walking round in circles, McCafferty and Westenra teach the audience that trust and time sometimes have to be helped along by twisted arms in order to find agreement. The final tableau hints at the last supper, while many moments of dialogue seem to reach out from 1998 to speak into 2023’s political stalemate.

Agreement is ambitious in its scale, and a triumph of script, performance and education. It continues at the Lyric Theatre until Saturday 22 April.

Photo credit: Carrie Davenport

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Distortion – a very smart piece of political drama (The MAC, on demand until 24 October)

There’s something captivating about sitting in a theatre audience, mere metres away from the stage and being able to watch – unmediated – the live performances of a well-directed cast telling a story in front of your eyes. When they shout, bits of spit are caught in the bright lights. So close it’s intimate.

Of course, that’s an ideal scenario that hasn’t been open to most of us for the last 18 months.

Even before then, I remember some years ago sitting up in the gods peering down at the Grand Opera House stage to see a touring production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. While the vantage point offered a bird’s eye view of the full set and choreography, it was impossible to distinguish subtle facial expressions and any sense of emotion had to be gleaned from larger gestures, how an actor carried themselves, or through their tone of voice.

Pre-pandemic, I was semi-regular at National Theatre Live productions in local cinemas, where a wide-angled view of the full set (conveniently a large cinema screen isn’t far off the height from stage to proscenium arch) could alternate with close-ups of significant interactions. Something was nearly always lost in the action – the ability to turn your head and be distracted by some small detail happening in another corner of the stage was denied – but it was a good second best to travelling across to London to see something in person. And the Apple TV filmed adaptation of Hamilton probably improved the staging of the all-singing all-dancing theatre version.

Amanda Verlaque’s Distortion homes in on an ambitious political couple. A public relations guru Jo (Valene Kane) has been employed to increase their electoral success. Heather (Mary Moulds) is aiming at a seat on Belfast City Council, while Kevin (Michael Condron) has his eyes set on representing Belfast South at Westminster. As their preparation and campaign unfolds over 80 minutes, Verlaque’s writing sets up a regular rhythm of revelation, audience re-evaluation, and then follows through into the triangular reaction among the central cast.

The evolving power dynamic and never-settling question of who is playing with whom is engaging, sprinkled with the hypocrisy and duplicitousness expected in a political thriller. Where these three are concerned, it’s no spoiler to say that ultimately the player turns out to have been played. Enough secrets are spilled to fill more than one closet.

While one character is challenged “Don’t you want to be true to yourself?” it’s not clear that any of the individuals are comfortable owning up to their circumstances, motivations and behaviours. Where politics goes, sex tends to follow. As each layer is peeled off, the intrigue grows and the plot moves beyond a simple stereotyped representation of local Northern Ireland politics and into a morality tale that asks questions of how we view honesty, coercion, sexuality and control. And how what we believe and do and say can be distorted by ourselves and others.

Lata Sharma has a recurring role as political reporter Jane. Her lines are a bit too verbose, but her struggle to get to the truth of the story is real enough. Condron is doesn’t overplay the cheeky chappie card and excels as a canny opportunist, while Moulds successfully pivots her closeted character from being warm and earthy to expressing powerful lust as the plot unfolds. Kane wears Jo’s lesbian heart on her sleeve and really captures the strategist’s distressing loss of control.

Ciaran Bagnall’s set picks up a lot of the textures and hues of The MAC’s galleries. The faux concrete and low unfussy walls provide a great canvass on which director Rhiann Jeffrey can paint her characters.

Filmed on the The MAC’s main stage – and premiered as a film to a small audience sitting in the same theatre space, terribly meta! – you’re never not aware that this is a MAC production, yet Distortion never tries to stop being theatre and become TV.

Jeffrey often takes advantage of the camera angles to keep the three protagonists in shot, lining them up in a chain, or creating a visual triangle that allows the audience to track their reactions. The shots that work least well are the handful of full-face close ups which are too televisual and jar. But on the whole, the curation of vantage points enhances the feeling of drama and benefits the storytelling.

Garth McConaghie’s sound design picks up on the title, makes good use of the stereo imaging, and isn’t afraid to fade into the background at the points when the dialogue has no need to any external augmentation.

With only a few nips and tucks, Distortion – originally written for stage – could return to the MAC as a full theatre piece. I really hope it does, as it’s one of the smartest pieces of political drama to come out of Northern Ireland in the last five years.

Distortion can be viewed on demand (£12.50–25 pay what you can) until Sunday 24 October 

Photo credits: Melissa Gordon

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Singing Struggle and Agreement - discussing and singing the Good Friday Agreement! #BIAF20

Culture, in its many varied forms, can provide a window through which to view society, and also a mirror to reflect back what we might not have noticed about ourselves. We often connect emotionally with pieces of music. Songs become sporting team anthems. Music can be a passionate cry of celebration or bellow of despair.

One Sunday morning last November, I received an email from a mutual friend saying that a former NIO official had set part of the Belfast Agreement to music. But it hadn’t been sung on the island on which it was negotiated or voted upon. Did I know anyone who might tackle it?

It was clearly kind of quirky, unexpected and potentially thought-provoking event that Peter O’Neill at the Imagine! Belfast Festival of Ideas and Politics in March was indeed bound to support. I would build a panel around remembering the talks leading up to the Agreement, and Spark Opera volunteered to take on the music.

Then imminent lockdown made rehearsals impossible and the event was shelved.

But much like on off on off Northern Ireland peace talks, the event has revived and regrouped with the help of Belfast International Arts Festival in partnership with Spark Opera and Slugger O’Toole. We’d big plans for 90-strong socially distanced audiences to enjoy the even more distanced singers in the cavernous St Anne’s Cathedral. That too was stymied. The word ‘struggle’ in the event title began to take on additional layers of meaning.

Yet, festivals – and the arts community in general – are incredibly resilient. Tonight, the festival streamed our event. You can still go back to watch and hear the 25 singers (recorded on Saturday spread out across Fisherwick Presbyterian’s pews) perform a variety of songs of struggle, and one of agreement (its Northern Irish and Irish première), and listen to the panel (recorded yesterday). Can you tell the whole show was filmed by me using iPhones?!

Clare Salters set the opening preamble of the Belfast Agreement to music, subtitling her piece “p E A C E in 4/4 time”, a musical cryptogram referring to piano (soft) and the first four rising notes of the piece. The Agreement’s opening Declaration of Support is more human and less legal than the chapters that follow. It’s a verbatim piece, so all of the words in the right order, including tricky lists of cross border institutions that have got to be held in tension with each other, musically and in real life.

The musical programme includes five other pieces that shout out against tyranny, oppression, attack, and explore identity and solidarity. Spark Opera’s Hearth Chorus were joined by NI Opera’s Associate Artists and a couple of guests under the baton of Keith McAlister. Present to film the pieces – the sound engineer and me the only audience – it was moving to witness live music on that scale after so many months when buskers seemed to be all that remained.

Woven through the music is a panel discussion. Mark Devenport recalls the months he spent reporting from the car park outside Castle Buildings and the moment when Stephen Grimason arrived with a first full copy of the Agreement. Monica McWilliams tells the story from inside the negotiations, the narrow corridors, and the TV used to watch politicians negotiating on the airwaves outside the window. And there’s a story of David Ervine becoming Tarzan to quickly exit from a CNN interview conducted up a tree. We hear from composer Clare Salters, and Spark Opera’s Kate Guelke gives the music context and also reflects on how a political agreement shaped her life.

The event was free but Belfast International Arts Festival welcome donations!

Elsewhere in the festival programme, you’ll find some cutting edge online theatre – Macbeth and The University of Wonder & Imagination – alongside a very rich programme of free interviews and talks (including Stuart Maconie, Jenni Murray and Lennie Goodings). You’ll also find music, films, and you can book a slot to visit the RUA Annual Exhibition in the Ulster Museum. Full programme available on the Belfast International Arts Festival website.

cross-posted from Slugger O’Toole

 

Singing the (Good Friday) Agreement: peace in 4/4 time … only at the Imagine! Belfast Festival (Monday 23 March)

“singing the d’Hondt formula would just be weird”

We’ve implemented it, ignored it and extended it, but never before in Northern Ireland has it been sung!

But on the opening night of Imagine! Belfast Festival of Ideas & Politics, you can settle down to hear singers from Spark Opera perform the local première of a choral setting of the Declaration of Support at the start of the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement text.

The doors of Accidental Theatre in Belfast’s Shaftesbury Square (under the big screen) open on Monday 23 March at 6.30pm for a 7pm start, and the Book Bar will be open to quench your thirst.

The Good Friday Agreement: peace in 4/4 time is a somewhat unexpected work was composed by Clare Salters, who worked in the Northern Ireland Office and was involved in the negotiations.

Alongside the musical performances from our talented choir who will bring to life a number of other appropriate choral pieces alongside the Agreement, I’ll be in conversation with a former politician who was inside the talks in Castle Buildings as well as a journalist who anchored hours and hours of the rolling late-night TV coverage that accompanied the negotiations. An evening of nostalgia and reflection.

So why not join us on Monday 23 March for an hour of music and talk with Spark Opera’s performers and our panel of guests. Tickets for this Imagine! Belfast event are available from the Accidental Theatre website.

The negotiations concluded in April 1998 – or entered their next phase – and when I caught up with Clare recently, I asked whether she’d immediately sat down to set the Agreement to music?

“[It wasn’t] really until 2018 when I became involved in the iPlay4Peace initiative. That was mainly focused on WW1 and the centenary of the Armistice, but it was obviously also the 20th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement and I’d been struck by how many people – particularly in Great Britain, though not only there – had forgotten its significance, what it covered, and why it was still relevant. So when the call came out for entries for the iPlay4Peace 2019 compositions I thought I should give it a go.”

The composition includes the opening declaration rather than the 30 or more pages of the Agreement!

“I’d really wanted to do the whole thing, but quickly realised that would make for too long a piece, and would be too difficult to sustain the opening cryptogram for the entirety of the piece without being monotonous. Plus singing the d’Hondt formula would just be weird. But I realised that so much of the spirit of the Agreement was encapsulated in that opening declaration, so I focused on that.”

Clare is no stranger to choirs, having sung in the Belfast Philharmonic for a number of seasons “before work took over my life”. But while she was familiar with orchestrating for instrumental ensembles, the former civil servant hadn’t tried her hand at choral writing since school days.

Her early days at the Northern Ireland Office were as “a very junior cog in the wheel”.

“Graduate trainees in the political directorate were part of the department’s note taking rota, taking it in turns to trot round after the Secretary of State to record all his – later her – meetings. It was a fabulous opportunity to be part of genuinely historic developments at a very early stage in my career. I was really lucky.”

Subsequently roles in the NIO included working on human rights and equality, the Patten reforms of policing, the legacy of the past, the St Andrews Agreement and restoration of devolution, the devolution of law and order functions and – latterly – Brexit”.

The choral piece has been performed in England, with a few familiar NIO faces in the choir, and will now get its Northern Irish premiere on the opening night of Imagine! Belfast festival in March.

How does Clare feel about the work being heard for the first time in the city where the words were crafted and negotiated?

“I’m really delighted. They’re words that need to be heard elsewhere, but they belong in Northern Ireland. The nerdy constitutional equivalent of ‘football’s coming home’!”

Presented by Slugger O’Toole in association with Spark Opera as part of the Imagine! Belfast festival.

Cross-posted from Slugger O’Toole

Abomination: a DUP Opera (Lyric Theatre until Sunday 10 November by the Belfast Ensemble as part of Outburst Arts Festival)

People queueing to pick up their tickets from the box office were heard talking about this being their first visit to the Lyric Theatre. There to watch a brand-new opera, Abomination: a DUP Opera by the creative and talented Belfast Ensemble, that is political in every sense.

The golden thread through the 70-minute performance is formed by Iris Robinson’s June 2008 interviews with Stephen Nolan on his BBC Radio Ulster programme. She described homosexuality as “an abomination” in the same week a gay man was beaten in a homophobic attack.

“I’m asking you again, Iris, to share your understanding of homosexuals with us, not your condemnation” says Nolan. Voiced, rather than sung, by an unflustered Tony Flynn, the presenter’s precision questions certainly stand the test of time and forensically zero in on Robinson’s verbal gymnastics. “I don’t need a lecture from you, Stephen, the Bible is very clear” she retorts when Nolan challenges the tone of her language.

Projections onto he back wall and floor are used to establish the time frame and identify key figures. Conor Mitchell’s libretto uses verbatim words – spoken and written – by Robinson as well as many other DUP representatives discussing homosexuality over the last forty years. It’s almost liturgical. Nothing is added, and at intervals the phrases being sung are visually highlighted in contemporary newspaper reporting to emphasise that nothing has been twisted or taken out of context.

“Peter will not marry Paul in Northern Ireland” explained Jim Wells to the Belfast Telegraph in April 2017. An early, shorter version of Abomination was performed as part of the same festival last year in concert form with the final work now programmed into Outburst Arts Festival long before the notion of Westminster legislation to allow same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland or the notion of a general election.

Standing on the shoulders of the operatic greats, the melodies switch from tragic minor keys to major motifs for the darkest of language (“the curse of God”) counterpointing what many in the audience would hear as hate-filled speech with uplifting, mellifluous phrases. Down below in the pit, Tom Brady conducts the sparky 13-piece orchestra, whose dissonant brass accompanies the word “repulsed”.

It’s amazing that 11 years ago a modern politician could go on the airwaves and speak about “a very lovely psychiatrist who works with me in my office … he tries to help homosexuals”. While shocking in language, tone and intent, the Nolan/Robinson interviews perhaps marked a political turning point which encouraged more moderate unionist voices to speak out and change their own rhetoric and engagement.

Soprano Rebecca Caine’s grey suit and wig are loosely styled on the central anti-hero, but none of the rest of the cast visually imitate the well-known politicians or radio presenter. This isn’t played as a farce. While her diction is crystal clear, her poise and expression hint that not all is well in the life of Robinson.

Dressed in similarly grey suits – a reminder of how many party representatives spoke with one voice over the decades – the performers stand in the visible wings waiting to step onto the stripped-back monochrome staging. Jeffrey Donaldson appears in the form of mezzo Dawn Burns, accessorised with a Boudician union flag shield and trident.

They Are Poofs, a moment full of uproar and joy in the concert version – based on Sammy Wilson’s comments in June 1992 after gay rights activists requested the use of Belfast City Hall when he said “They are poofs. I don't care if they are ratepayers. As far as I am concerned, they are perverts” – is far more subdued in this performance, yet the use of loudhailers quietly emphasises the total lack of listening by the cloth-eared party.

Stunningly lit, alternating between from above, the side and below, Mary Tumelty throws lots of shade and at times turns the cast into LS Lowry-esque stick figures moving in silhouette across the stage.

Large, brightly coloured props decorate the stage. One DUP flunky (played by Matthew Cavan) slowly dresses in sparkling orange platform boots and his trademark outrageous wig, perhaps a reminder that there’s more welcome for diversity among the party faithful than any public representative is yet willing to admit. Baritone Christopher Cull and tenor John Porter complete the solid DUP voices, joined by gutsy chorus of James Cooper, Tara Greene, Caolan Keaveney, Helenna Howie and Connlaodh McDonagh. Away from the arias, the performers combine to surge up to meet Mitchell’s soaring refrains and create some powerful moments of vocal glory.

Robinson’s affair with the local butcher’s son (portrayed beautifully in a wordless dance by angelic Richard Chappell while red, white and blue balloons gently sway in the far corner of the stage) reminds audiences that the politicians comments were made at a fulcrum of personal crisis, vulnerability and self-destruction, though that excuse isn’t available for the decades of other speeches and comments that are featured from Paisley (senior and junior), McCrea, Wilson, Shannon, Donaldson, Wells. Also wordless is the brief appearance of a tiered cake with two well-known puppets sitting on top, providing social context.

As one audience member commented afterwards, to wrap a dinosaur artform around dinosaur politicians is a beautiful thing. Abomination is no hatchet job. If anything, it is all the more powerful for being restrained. Arlene Foster’s comments in June 2018 that “we must respectfully engage and listen to each other's viewpoints” even offer hope, albeit tinged with incredulous scepticism. The countermelody of Jesus Loves Me has been retained from last year and adds a musical twist to the final moments.

Abomination is a powerful reminder to public representatives about the lasting import and impact of their utterances. But more importantly, it’s a cutting edge example of how to take a social issue and translate it into a compelling art-form, with high production values and great performances across the cast, orchestra and creatives.

While no doubt a difficult piece for anyone quoted to contemplate sitting through, it’s also a challenge for many in and connected with the LGBT community who carry the hurt and isolation from years of often unchallenged political rhetoric.

Composed, designed and directed by Conor Mitchell, Abomination’s sold out run in the Lyric Theatre as part of Outburst Arts Festival finishes on Sunday 10 November. A powerful addition to the Belfast Ensemble’s repertoire of original musical theatre, it will surely resurface across Europe, where the politics and themes will resonate.

Staging Schiele – one hundred years on, Egon Schiele’s self-portraits resonate with modern dating rituals in this gaunt tale (Shobana Jeyasingh at The MAC as part of #BIAF19)

A young man writhes around on the floor in a state of partial undress taking pictures of himself with a mirror that is clearly representing a smartphone. It’s an early scene from Staging Schiele which brings the naked self-portraiture of Austrian painter Egon Schiele (1880-1918) up-to-date and off the canvas and onto the dance floor. As Schiele, Dane Hurst works the angles, and ponders the aesthetic of his shots while the audience check out his nude-coloured spandex shorts.

Re-entering the stage, Schiele is now physically intertwined with a woman, sharing a garment. Intricate yet jarring movements follow as they fail to separate themselves. Clothes are soon forgotten as they tangle and entangle.

Another woman appears, then a third, dropping into the orbit of this vain artist. It’s as if he’s trying them out, flirting with their bodies. But the power doesn’t all lie in his gaze as the women gauge the competition, with angular gestures and touches, as the slight figures leap up into Hurst’s arms as if feathers in the wind. They slip in and out of the barred set as slickly as Hurst slides them across the stage floor. Played by Catarina Carvalho, Sunbee Han and Estela Merlos, the women’s figures suggests they are models, their sensual touch extending their relationship to that of lovers.

The discordant soundtrack features notes from a piano that seems to have lost its middle octaves, with superposed oohs, and the German words from a couple of Schiele’s poems spoken, sung and whispered, with the occasional euphoric groan and the word ‘stop’ to conclude each scene. One word that cuts through the accompaniment is ‘liebe’, yet it’s clear that self-love is about the only real love on show.

Having hotfooted it from covering the DUP conference for Slugger O’Toole to The MAC to catch the show, there were moments suggestive of a jilted lover, spurned after an initial intoxication, that seemed to mirror the current state of the relationship between the Conservative Party and the DUP. Though no one in Staging Schiele seemed to be left with an engagement ring worth £1 billion …

Shobana Jeyasingh reminds us that one hundred years after his death, Schiele’s penchant for painting himself naked has become common place amongst teens who engage in the trade of nude selfies as part of sick modern mating rituals. Lusty gazes overlap like the woman completing for Schiele’s attention, and there’s seemingly a plethora of vulnerable imagery to weigh up before forming a shallow relationship.

While there’s beauty in the skill and precision of the cast’s interactions, and a supportive set (Ben Cullen Williams) and beams of light (Adam Carrée), as if through prison windows, to complement the dancing, the soundtrack could have been copied from a Guantanamo Bay mixtape that’s becomes a distraction during the second half of the 50-minute performance.

Part of Belfast International Arts Festival which continues until Sunday 3 November. You can read up about my picks from the festival programme.

Official Secrets – one whistleblower’s failed attempt to stop the Iraq war (in cinemas from Friday 18 October)

Keira Knightly starts in the true story of Katharine Gun, a GCHQ staffer who in January 2003 leaked an NSA memo requesting UK help for intelligence that would put the smaller, non-permanent members of the UN Security Council under pressure to vote for a resolution that would allow the invasion of Iraq. Arrested in March, and charged under Section 1 of the Official Secrets Act in November, the prosecution declined to offer evidence when her case came to court in February 2004.

“Just because you’re the prime minister doesn’t mean you get to make up your own facts,” says Gun early on in Official Secrets, a sober film directed by Gavin Hood which makes little attempt to glamorise or hype up the account of a failed attempt to stop a war. Gun is clear that “I work for the British people. I do not gather intelligence so the government can lie to the British people.”

With a performance that carries much of the film, Knightly holds such emotion in her face as her character lives through the consequences of her action on her own freedom and her that of her husband (Yasar played by Adam Bakri) whose immigration status is under threat. Despite the huge cast around the central figure of Gun, the co-workers, journalists, lawyers and intelligence sources are well-defined, and introduced very naturally and without fuss into the 112-minute narrative.

Matt Smith plays The Observer journalist (Martin Bright) who eventually published a story about the leak once its veracity had been stood up. Conleth Hill captures the cautious yet hungry for a story approach of editor Roger Alton, while Rhys Ifans is more than flamboyant as the paper’s US correspondent Ed Vulliamy.

Ralph Fiennes picks up the role of Ben Emmerson, the QC who worked with Liberty to defend Gun. The collapsing relationship between Emmerson and his friend and former colleague who had become Director of Public Prosecutions Ken Macdonald (played by Jeremy Northam) is well crafted. Though this major tiff begs a question that surrounds much of the film: how much of it is true, and which aspects are fictionalised?

As the story of one person taking on the establishment and calling out disinformation and propaganda – in this case the false claims being made by figures like Tony Blair and Colin Powell to justify a war in Iraq – chimes with modern worries about the reckless abandonment of truthfulness at the top of some western governments.

The story is thankfully procedural rather than having been written as a political thriller. The rush through traffic to the Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre in some ways adds unnecessary drama to a film that is more about telling the story of a brave civil servant than providing thrills and spills. Watch out for the nostalgic use of a Zip drive!

Official Secrets will do well on the small screen. There’s little in the production that absolutely demands a cinematic experience. However, the uninterrupted nature of a couple of hours in the picture house gives time for alarm bells to ring and left me wondering what pushes someone over the edge to become a whistleblower, particularly having recently finished reading Edward Snowden’s memoire Permanent Record and the leak that might yet precipitate an impeachment hearing for President Trump.

You can find Official Secrets in most local cinemas in UK and Ireland from Friday 18 October.

The Alternative – where does the power lie, who knows best, will anyone ask let alone listen? (Fishamble’s A Play For Ireland at Lyric Theatre until Sunday 13 October)

Set in an alternative reality where the third Home Rule Bill passed and Ireland remained part of United Kingdom but is now on the cusp of an in/out referendum, The Alternative casts its satirical spell over media, politics and the insecurities and secrets that destroy relationships.

Richard has returned to work a week after his wife’s death to produce the final debate on the eve of the referendum poll. BBC Dublin is hosting the final confrontation between the prime minister (originally from Dublin) and the leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party. Richard’s deputy is put out that he’s muscling in when she’s been covering for him so well. His presenter has an eye on a big job with a commercial competitor.

Oisín Kearney and Michael Patrick capture the frenetic conversations that can precede a live broadcast. The incessant checking. The ever-changing running orders as new snippets of information change scripts. The overly cynical insider conversations with crude shortcuts that are bantered around an office steeped in politics, that would never be shared so gratuitously on air.

Into this pressure cooker walks Richard’s daughter, Grainne. She’s stopped taking the medication that prevents her hallucinating and seeing people and places that are not real. She’s run out of patience waiting for an important conversation with her father.

Maree Kearns’ split level set design provides an upper deck for the private familial drama, overlooking the live broadcast theatre in the public shiny floor studio down below. Saileóg O’Halloran’s costumes pick up on the garish blocks of single colour clothes worn by campaigning politicians. The green crown broach decorating the PM’s bright red dress is a nice touch.

Humorous interstitial videos remind viewers (and the theatre audience) about the history that has brought the island to this important decision point. The audience gasp in shock at some of the familiar Irish players with unexpected contributions to this very British history. Voxpops and news reports show how opinion is divided, and how passions run high on the streets outside the debate.

Given the counterfactual starting point of this play, and Grainne’s glimpses into alternative realities, it’s perhaps not asking a lot for the audience to suspend further disbelief that a TV debate of such national importance could be staffed by such a small team with such undisciplined lines of control, and derailed by the unfolding chaotic incidents.

The pacey production team dialogue on the studio floor sharply contrasts with the family debate, losing some of the show’s energy each time the action ascends the stairs. But director Jim Culleton manages to stitch these two paces together, and incorporates the live camera work without fuss. The atmosphere is authentic: it’s very like the afternoon I sat in the same Lyric Theatre space for a recording of a UTV election debate.

Lorcan Cranitch presents a believably exasperated father figure, struggling to cope with the situations he faces in the realm of home and work. His capable prodigy Hannah is played by Rachel O’Byrne with business-like confidence that falters when dragged into her boss’s family matters. John is hosting Ireland Decides. There’s a touch of Stephen Nolan as he ignores the direction in his earpiece and goes for good TV rather than a fair debate. Rory Nolan creates John as a slick and creepy boychild, a definite villain of the piece.

Karen Ardiff’s Prime Minister is feisty and committed to Remain, while her affable opponent (Arthur Riordan) sways in the breeze, grabbing straws out of the air as he strings together arguments to back up his Leave ideology. The pair are far too polite and considerate to each other during the debate to be realistic. But they parrot familiar lines about taking back control, insular worldviews and bananas with scary conviction.

The Alternative examines the power of the media to shape the theatre of politics, the power of politicians to mix facts with belief to stir up irrational emotion, the power exerted by men to override – and overpower – women in their circle of influence, and the power of a single voice to bring a fresh perspective to a debate.

The young woman labelled as being schizophrenic is perhaps the most rational person on the stage. Grainne is the only person to see more than one option while everyone else flails around trying to implement their single way of solving whatever problem is facing them. She’s also the only person not be asked for an opinion. Maeve Fitzgerald instils a sense of fragility in the character, along with a lucidity as she works through the alternative meanings of the bombshell statement that closes the first act.

Kearney and Patrick won Fishamble’s 30th anniversary competition to write A Play For Ireland. (You can read/listen to my interview with Michael Patrick in an earlier blog post.) Their playful counterfactual uses referendum concepts and lexicon – familiar from both Scotland’s indyref and the EU vote – to open up a conversation about who knows what is best for the people of Ireland, whether those who represent us actually listen to our views before making decisions, and ultimately where power lies in a society swayed by soundbite.

Well worth tracking down one of the remaining tickets for this impressive production before The Alternative finishes its run in the Lyric Theatre on Sunday 13 October.