MARY CONWAY revels in a powerful reminder that human lives are not defined by physical perfection
Latest editorial
A brilliantly tense play
A compelling story of how cruelty begets cruelty, and of how the child becomes the parent, writes PETER MASON
Orla Fitzgerald as Maureen and Adam Best as Pato
[Helen Maybanks]
PAUL DONOVAN recommends the fine performances in this account of the pre-war meeting between the US president and the British king
TECLYN AROD relishes an intimate celebration of jazz improvisation that mixes local and national musicians
The missing sister, the vengeful WAG, cruise ship claustrophobia, and reanimated Avengers
Three great releases of lost concerts by Duke Ellington Orchestra, John Taylor & Stan Sulzman, and Joe Henderson
To rescue Kahlo from the clutches of the corporate art market, we need to acknowledge the overt and covert political dimensions of the work, demands GAVIN O’TOOLE
Beauty Queen of Leenane
Lyric Hammersmith, London
SET in the west of Ireland and first staged in 1996, Martin McDonagh’s Beauty Queen of Leenane centres around 40-year-old Maureen, angry and depressed at having to look after her manipulative, ailing mother as the rain falls ceaselessly outside their run-down home in Connemara.
Momentarily Maureen’s drab isolation is relieved as she stumbles into a night of awkward romance with neighbour Pato, who has returned briefly from a labouring job in England.
But when her selfish mother contrives to put the kybosh on their putative relationship, there are bitter consequences all round.
Similar stories
GEORGE FOGARTY is dazzled by a breathtakingly skillful puppet version of Shakespeare’s greatest love poem
MARY CONWAY becomes impatient with the intellectual self-indulgence of Tom Stoppard in a production that is, nevertheless, total class
Although this production was in rehearsal before the playwright’s death, it allows us to pay homage to his life, suggests MARY CONWAY
MARY CONWAY applauds the success of Beth Steel’s bitter-sweet state-of-the-nation play