Reviews
newspaper reviews
(L to R) Ruairi Conaghan; Lorraine Pilkington, Barnaby Kay; Laine Megaw, Patrick O’Kane
Photography by Pau Ros
Director: Mick Gordon, Designer: Rae Smith, Lighting Designer: Neil Austin, Sound Designer: Rich Walsh
Gary Mitchells powerful, disturbing new play, set in an unspecified period which could be anything from the Belfast of early 1980s to the Loyalist ceasefire 1994, darkens from the domestic comedy to a quite terrifying stand-offMick Gordon directs with an innate sensitivity to both the banalities and the complexities of Northern Irish life, from the big-picture internecine conflicts between Loyalists and the forces of the Crown to whom they are supposedly loyal, to the minutiae such as a supporting characters habitual, casual use of the word fuck (as Michael Herr memorably described it) like a comma.
Financial Times 18-3-99
This vitriolic but compassionate play almost smells of reality. It is also a rare thing, a Protestant voice in the strong contemporary Ulster theatre traditionMitchells writing is laced with a raw, terrifying sense of humour; his characters talk in the savagely elliptical manner characteristic of people who know that anything they say can, and probably will, be used in evidence against them. The acting, and Mick Gordons production, have a whiplash accuracy.
The Sunday Times 21-3-99
