Dublin Carol ( Archived )

Reviews

newspaper reviews

(L to R) Brian Cox as John, Bronagh Gallagher as Mary, Andrew Scott as Mark

Production photography by Ivan Kyncl

Direction: Ian Rickson, Design: Rae Smith, Lighting: Paule Constable, Sound: Paul Arditti, Music: Stephen Warbeck

Cast: Brian Cox, Bronagh Gallagher, Andrew Scott

Michael Coveney, DAILY MAIL, 21 January 2000

“The play works an ingenious spell, just as McPherson’s THE WEIR has done for the past couple of years in London and all across the country … A small play, but a large subject, and a dramatic shape that is a clear advance on THE WEIR. McPherson writes like a dream and his story-telling gifts are well served in Ian Rickson’s production and the acting of an impeccable cast.”

Benedict Nightingale, THE TIMES, 21 January 2000

“Let me report at once that those who feared that the 27-year-old McPherson’s extraordinarily successful THE WEIR was an artistic one-off are wrong. Like the casual drinkers in that play, the Dublin undertaker so disturbingly played by Cox has the Irish instinct for story-telling, but, as there, the stories are packed with feeling … McPherson’s observation and writing retain a vivid, first-hand feel whether Cox’s John is beginning to unburden himself to Andrew Scott’s Mark, who has been helping with a funeral, or confronting Bronagh Gallagher as his daughter Mary, or revealing yet more of his abject history to Mark. Without forcing it, Gallagher makes John and us feel the damage he has caused her and her brother, as well as the paradoxical strength his marathon binges gave her mother… McPherson does not sentamentalise the repentant alcoholic. And Cox’s brilliant performance also keeps your sympathy and judgement finely balanced”

Paul Taylor, THE INDEPENDENT, 21 January 2000

“A great merit of the piece is that it faces up to the worst with a blessed lack of cynicism. It’s a play which understands, on one hand, that the deep pitiable reasons for our defects can trap us into a habit of using them as excuses for ourselves. The play is similarly unjudgemental about love. Bronagh Gallagher’s superb Mary demonstrates that she can’t help loving her errant father, having been moulded by the experience of being his child.”

Charles Spencer, DAILY TELEGRAPH, 22 January 2000

“Once again one feels one is in the company of a theatrical spellbinder with a natural gift for story telling. And while the narrative is often gruelling there is no mistaking the unsentimetal compassion that makes McPherson such a redemptive writer. Ian Rickson’s intense and beautifully acted production sends one out into the night shaken, stirred and, I must confess, absolutely desperate for a drink.”

David Nowlan, THE IRISH TIMES, 22 January 2000

“DUBLIN CAROL is a comic and cathartic play about people’s inability to relate to each other. It is richly illuminated by Brian Cox’s purposefully evasive characterisation; a massive performance beautifully set off by Bronagh Gallgher’s luminously loving Mary and by Andrew Scott’s hopefully innocent Mark. I have not had as truthful or as telling a night of theatre in years.”

Susannah Clapp, THE OBSERVER, 23 January 2000

“It delivers some hammer blows to the heart … McPherson brings to the stage extraordinary shifts of temperature. The beauty of his writing lies in its apparent transparency and its actual stealth … In THE WEIR a series of ghost stories lead up to a human tragedy; in DUBLIN CAROL, the pretences and falsities of a dying love affair prefigure the desperate shifts and escapes of the dipsomaniac non-hero. There’s no hectoring here; just the steady drip of detail. It’s slow but satisfying – and will gain and grow when it’s shown at its intended venue next month.”