(Peter Crawley’s article appeared in the Irish Times, 3/9.)
One of the most rewarding things about the sublime success of Rough Magic’s 2004 musical was just how unlikely it seemed. Partly this was to do with Arthur Riordan’s subject matter: A crossword puzzle solver turned spy investigates Emergency-era Dublin while a constellation of literary and scientific cameos gather around him, from Myles na gCopaleen, Erwin Schrödinger and John Betjeman to a clutch of historically accuratish Nationalist Nazi sympathisers. Add to that a writer with effervescent ideas and who never met a pun he couldn’t spin into a lyric: “You were the one across from me, so I was not two down.”
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/theticket/2012/0309/1224313046695.html