Theatre: The Luck of the Irish

Megan Wilding and Seamus Quinn

Yesterday was the 112^th anniversary of the summer’ afternoon James Joyce and Nora Barnacle stepped out together in Dublin, later immortalized as the day in which he set Ulysses. It has been celebrated as Bloomsday for over nine decades, in homage to the book, its author and the joys of alcohol.

The Irish Club staged its 26^th (and, some report, last) Bloomsday last night, with performances by the illustrious and indefatigable Colm O’Doherty, his lovely daughter Damien, and other luminaries.

As the luck of the Irish would have it, there’s been a lot of it around this week; from the saga of Fionn Mac Cumhaill and the Fianna in Finn O’Branagain and Scott Sandwich’s illuminating, poetic The Epic at the Blue Room to Taryn Ryan’s show-stopping Ireland in WAAPA’s smashing Legally Blonde at the Regal (both reviewed here).

But they were mere tastes; for the whole stew, it’s off to WAAPA and, where else, the Irish Club.

Theatre: The Pillowman

by Martin McDonagh
Endless Theatre Company
Directed by Rebecca Virginia Williams
Performed by Jordan Gallagher, Kiefer Moriarty-Short, Bryn Coldrick and Garreth Bradshaw
State Theatre Centre Rehearsal Room until Feb 22

The Pillowman, tweaked slightly, could pop up as a telemovie on the ABC or Showtime.
It’s got obsessed detectives, a perhaps-not-so-innocent suspect with freak-out brother, bad behaviour in the interview room, that sort of thing. Think those grey-and-white Scandinavian crime stories; think The Fall or Top of the Lake.
But that’s not what makes the play, which cut a swathe trough the London and New York theatre awards a decade go, sing. Its writer, Martin McDonagh, has a trick or two up his sleeve, and the result, while enjoyably unpleasant, is more Grimm than merely grim.