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A Friel good story

Find out about the latest play at the Old Vic and WIN tickets to a show! By Frank Murphy - 01/04/09

Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa makes a welcome return to London for the first time since its premiere in 1990.

Lughnasa is the ancient Celtic harvest festival and in the fictional village of Ballybeg, Co Donegal, the lives of the five unmarried Mundy sisters are

interrupted by the arrival of two very different men.

First, there is Gerry Evans, a Welsh cad who seven years earlier, left youngest sister, Chris (Andrea Corr) with a child called Michael. Then there’s Father Jack, recently returned from Uganda having spent 25 years working with lepers, an experience that’s left him confused in speech and over his Catholic faith.

Finbar Lynch as Fr Jack delivers a robust performance, contrasting the life of his flock in Africa with the oppressiveness of Irish Catholicism. Peter McDonald plays the illegitimate son, narrating the action now as a man. And Jo Stone-Fewings is the roué down to his brillantined hair.

How the five sisters deal with these male intrusions at a time of impending change in their village makes for the action of the play. The sisters’ Catholic faith means that the pagan ritual that the Lughnasa festival hints at must be banished. They dance like banshees, however, when it suits them at the music that blasts from the new-fangled wireless the household has recently acquired.

The play is performed in the round - I was sitting on some grass about three feet from the dancing in the kitchen. Director Anna Mackmin has pulled off a thoroughly watchable piece.

Niamh Cusack excels as Maggie whose only pleasure in life is her Woodbines. Michelle Fairley convinces as the eldest sister Kate, the only real bread-winner,

trying to bring stability in this maelstrom of change.Simone Kirby, who plays the hapless Rose, displays sheer vulnerability. And Susan Lynch, as Agnes, completing the female line up, provides an assured performance.

Dancing at Lughnasa is no Riverdance. It’s much more important than that.

Old Vic, until May 9. Tickets: £14.50-£45. Tel. 0870 060 6628.

COMPETITION

We have seven pairs of tickets to give away for one of the shows. For details of how to enter, buy this week's Irish World (April 4) or buy a copy HERE for only 50p and download the competition form. Good luck!