UK Theatre Network

The Manchester International Festival’s even more exciting fringe - the Not Part Of Festival 2011 - kicks off at Taurus Bar with this unusual comedy drama from multiple award-winning playwright Stuart D Lee.

Although there’s no shortage of Second World War-based fiction, Dev’s Army deals with the rarely explored issue of Ireland’s uneasy neutrality during what their Prime Minister Eamon De Valera (“Dev”) preferred to call the “Emergency”. With the Irish state barely twenty years old and the battle for freedom from the British still fresh in the memory, the population had conflicting emotions about fighting on the same side as their erstwhile foes even against a potentially much greater evil.

It’s September 1940, and while the Battle of Britain draws to a close over southern England all that is protecting the Irish coast against invasion is a trio of ill-matched oddballs armed with a one-wheeled bike and an unloaded gun. The seaside setting recalls Bridget O’Connor’s hilarious The Flags, while the ramshackle set-up is like Dad’s Army re-written by Martin McDonagh.

The ever-reliable Richard Sails as elderly patriot Paddy captures the character’s simultaneous craven cowardice and bully-boy bravado in the slippery way he dwells on the events of 1916 without ever specifying his role in them. Dean O’Sullivan’s credulous youngster Michael is the catalyst for many farcical situations, particularly at the beginning of Act 2, and Matt Lanigan’s earnest Dermot lends credulity to the squad as the only one with actual experience of fighting in a war.

The drama shifts into a different gear when a mysterious man in a suit is washed up on the beach following an explosion. Wayne Allsop is really excellent as the sinister and duplicitous stranger, all charm and danger - a classic Kevin Spacey role.

James Foster’s direction is strong on emotional realism, while Owen Rafferty’s evocative sound design and Christian Taylor’s attention to detail with the set, props and costumes establishes that this production has ambitions higher than the average fringe show. An excellent debut from Elysion Productions.

Dev’s Army

Presented by Elysion Productions

Taurus Bar, Canal Street, Manchester

Wed 29 June - Sat 2 July 2011 @ 8pm (3pm matinee on Sat)

£7/£5 (conc)

The Seafarer

Octagon Theatre, Bolton

5 June 2009

The final show in the Octagon season is Mark Babych’s valedictory production before he steps down as artistic director.  The Seafarer is another example of his passion for new writing, skill at working with a tight ensemble on an intense chamber piece, and penchant for black comedy – a characteristic choice from the director who brought us Four Knights in Knaresborough, Blue/Orange and assorted Martin McDonagh classics. 

Sharky, a shambolic middle-aged drifter, has mysteriously jacked in his chauffeuring job down south and returned to the bosom of his family for Christmas.  “Family” now comprises his blind older brother Richard and their drinking buddy Ivan, whose exasperated wife has chucked him out yet again.  In this dysfunctional company, and surrounded by every kind of alcohol, Sharky’s attempts at abstinence are already under pressure.  But then his arch-enemy Nicky comes round for a game of poker, accompanied by the enigmatic Mr Lockhart.  Nicky thinks he accidentally bumped into Mr Lockhart in a bar, but in fact Mr Lockhart has purposely come to claim a twenty-five-year-old debt from the doomed Sharky.

Conor McPherson’s monologue-heavy Shining City was at the Octagon a couple of years ago, but The Seafarer is a fuller-bodied piece, getting away from the long story-telling form by deploying the cast of five in a genuinely dramatic manner.  It’s also an out-and-out Irish comedy, though again with a supernatural twist.

The cast handle the Mamet-style dialogue with aplomb, and their characterisations are well observed, from Michael O’Connor’s edgy alcoholic Sharky, pacing the tiny basement room like a caged animal, to Peter Dineen as his monstrous brother, whose spirit remains strong but whose features are disintegrating like a digestive biscuit dunked in a cup of tea.  Brendan Charleson is piteous but funny as the myopic Ivan, and Leigh Symonds captures the way that Nicky’s confident designer-label self-image is actually a cheap counterfeit.  However it’s Fintan McKeown as the Mr Lockhart who brings another dimension to the play.  The crumpled white linen suit, goatee beard and pony-tail immediately mark him out from his grubby companions, as do his aristocratic bearing and a mesmeric bass-baritone.  And when he rants passionately about his contempt for the human body his voice seems to emerge directly from the unfathomed depths of hell.  His mastery of the role is absolute.

When the lights come up on Patrick Connellan’s incredibly detailed set we immediately know where we are - a former family home which has been taken over by undomesticated single men, with darts sticking out of the lampshade, a bar mat antimacassar over the back of the armchair, and the carpet carpeted by empty bottles and beer cans.  Even the bubbling fish tank plays its part, while Tom Dexter Scott’s subtle lighting underlines the other-worldly episodes without being intrusive.

This is a really funny night at the theatre for lovers of black Irish humour with a sting in the tail.  After this magnificent swan-song we can only hope that Mark Babych’s work will continue to be seen in the north-west, even if it’s just touring to The Lowry.

The Seafarer is on at Bolton Octagon until Saturday 27 June 2009

Tickets: from £9.00

Evenings: Mon-Sat at 7.30pm

Matinees: Wednesday 17 and Saturday 27 May @ 2pm

Box Office: 01204 520661

www.octagonbolton.co.uk

This Royal Exchange world premiere reunites Oscar-nominated actress Brenda Blethyn with director Braham Murray and designer Simon Higlett after their highly acclaimed collaboration on The Glass Menagerie last year.

Haunted is by distinguished Irish writer Edna O’Brien, perhaps best known for her novels, although equally at home scripting television, film and theatre.  In fact Haunted began life as a 1963 TV play starring Cyril Cusack, and in a nice coincidence his grand-daughter Beth Cooke plays one of the three characters in this stage translation.

Mr Berry, a semi-retired house-husband in London’s suburbia, becomes infatuated with Hazel, a young elocution teacher with an interest in vintage clothing.  Immediately smitten on their first chance encounter, he keeps luring her back to his house by “donating” items from his wife’s wardrobe.  Poor Mrs Berry, meantime, spends her days working in a doll factory and has no idea that her treasured possessions are being plundered, although she senses there’s something going wrong with her marriage (again).

As Mr Berry is the central character and narrator it’s impossible not to compare him with William Hazlitt, whose semi-autobiographical novel Liber Amoris is also a first-person account of the male menopause and its obsessions, passions and madness.  Although Niall Buggy is blithe and ingratiating, pottering around in his comfy carpet slippers and aspirational bow-tie, the audience can never experience his point of view as the reader of a book would: we only see his folly rather than share his hope.

Beth Cooke, who has just received a commendation from the Ian Charleson award panel for her performance in the Exchange’s production Three Sisters last autumn, brings a genuine sense of innocence and guilelessness to Hazel, as well as a detachment that is always at odds with any amorous ambitions Mr Berry might have.

Although the play is Mr Berry’s, the evening belongs to Mrs Berry.  Brenda Blethyn is brilliant as the frowsy, fussy, lower-middle-class factory worker who still cares passionately about her man and her marriage.  She manages to be comic, tragic, irritating and sympathetic all at once, and makes the audience long as much as she does for a happy ending – hers, not her husband’s.  This wonderful depiction is ably aided by the design, costume and wig departments - the cut-off raincoat and silk headscarf nail her era and class at a glance, and the immaculately-coloured helmet-like coiffeur seems made to withstand any marital storm.  Moreover, after spending all day on her stilettoed feet Mrs Berry doesn’t instantly kick off her shoes as she walks through the door like a mere mortal would, but instead reclines sensuously into the armchair, a domesticated Cleopatra, daintily sipping a glass of Madeira.  What a woman!  Mr Berry clearly doesn’t deserve her.

Haunted is on until Saturday 13 June 2009

Prices: £8.50-£29.00

Evenings: Mon-Fri @ 7.30pm, Sat @ 8pm

Matinees: Wed @ 2.30pm, Sat @ 4pm

Box Office: 0161 833 9833

www.royalexchange.co.uk