(Peter Crawley’s article appeared in the Irish Times, 9/14.)
REVIEWS
End Of
The Gutter Bookshop, Dublin
Sep 16-21/23-24 7.30pm €14/€12 fringefest.com
If, like me, your immediate response to the apocalypse would be to regret not having read more books, Sugar Coat Theatre’s new production is just the slap in the face you’ve been needing. Seanan McDonell’s new comedy, which will be performed in The Gutter Bookshop, is easily one of the loveliest venues of this year’s Fringe. Two friends working in a bookshop receive a mysterious package that may herald the end of the world as we know it. Sharp-eyed director Conor Hanratty works with Charlene Craig, Damian Gildea and Will Irvine – as well as conjuring tricks – to flip through the beginning of the world’s last chapters.
Gladys and the Gutter Stars
Smock Alley Theatre Boys School, Dublin
Sep 11-14/16-17 6.45pm €14/€12 fringefest.com
Whatever happened to Gladys and the Gutter Stars? The musical duo, whom the press still write about in sensationalist, incredible and hyperbolic terms, are still universally regarded as the greatest creators of popular song since the dawn of measurable time. Word is their long-anticipated new album will be made available exclusively on floppy disk. Or that it will be composed exclusively of whale song. Either way, performers Rachel Gleeson and Cameron Macauley finally offer a sneak peek of the opus in this Fringe show. Could this be a stunning return to form or a shocking display of hubris? Gladys and the Gutter Stars are pretty sure it will be one of those things.
Polar Night
The New Theatre, Dublin
Sep 14-16/20-23 1pm €12/€10 fringefest.com
A woman travels north in the winter to visit her ill mother, and her new husband. The performance – created by Nadine Flynn and Aaron Stapleton – combines theatre, film and visual art to evoke a cabin folding in on itself with licks of the supernatural and nudges of real concern. In a place where the daylight won’t easily reach, manipulation teems and high suicide rates chill the marrow. Rose, struggling to keep her sanity, must find the light to get free.
REVIEWS
My Left Nut
Bewley’s Café Theatre, Powerscourt Townhouse
★★★★
In Michael Patrick’s bittersweet comic solo performance, a young Belfast boy is having trouble with his manhood. In 1998, during the tentative steps of the Good Friday Agreement, the five-year-old’s father passes away, leaving an absence he comes to rue keenly in adolescence, when his left testicle inflates to the size of a grapefruit. In whom can a self-conscious teenager confide?
Written with his director Oisín Kearney, Patrick’s autobiographical coming-of-age tale strives for independence and intimacy through comedy, protected by a very sturdy solo-show formula, made more vulnerable with confessions of body horror and bereavement.
Patrick’s gang of mates, as charmingly sympathetic and well-informed as he is, take the bulge in his trousers to be a sign of his prowess. For his part, Patrick interprets it as punishment from God, “tangled up with wanking”. Unable to confide in his stoic mother he relies on excruciating discoveries via a dial-up internet connection.
The peace process would be a tempting metaphor to explore shifting authority and unguarded dialogue, but Patrick, you feel, is closer to a peace product: his preferred metaphor is a Sega video game.
Embarrassment, moreover, has been his trouble, now transformed to the source of his comedy. Like an ultimately unfussy procedure, that’s an encouraging reconciliation. – Peter Crawley
Runs until Sept 23
Gladys and the Gutter Stars
Smock Alley Theatre
★★★★
Gladys and the Gutter Stars
Can a band live on without their front-woman? In Cameron Macaulay and Rachel Gleeson’s wry comedy with songs, both are musicians debuting new material for a podcast. Their painful split from demented lead singer Gladys, of course, is unresolved.
Here, bitterness is barely suppressed under the polite exchanges of an interview. Gleeson sours into a scowl as Cameron gives an intelligible but winding answer for why he struggles with Arts Council applications. In turn, she talks seriously about spirituality and Kanye West.
Shane Daniel Byrne’s charming interviewer deals out thoughtful questions about imagery and lyrics, but his guests haven’t reflected much on a track-list that sounds like a string of second thoughts (Why Am I with You?, Pull Up the Blind, Betrayal).
The surreal arrival of Gladys herself rouses deeper anxieties. This could easily have been a vapid defence for naval-gazers but instead we get something more discreet, the trudge of a generation asked to work for free. With sparks of rock’n’roll, the Gutter Stars carry on. – Chris McCormack
Runs until Sept 17
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Photo: Gladys and the Gutter Stars/No More Workhorse
