CHRIS SEARLE welcomes a startling vision of contemporary Newport from a veteran photographer of the British working class
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Irish stew
A brilliant revival of an Irish classic exposes the play’s fundamental flaws, argues MARY CONWAY
BIBLICAL: Padraig Lynch in Birthright
[Craig Fuller]
ANGUS REID recommends a very unusual documentary: a love story between two disillusioned journalists
In verse and polemic, the bard points out that he is a poet and musician, not a political party
MARIA DUARTE, JAMES WALSH and ANDY HEDGECOCK review The Invite, My Father’s Island, Nirvanna: the Band, the Show, the Movie, and Oh My Goodness!
PAUL DONOVAN is chilled by the contemporary resonance of Harper Lee’s coming of age tale amidst racism and white supremacy in this excellent production
GEOFF BOTTOMS recommends the unashamedly light-hearted escapism on offer in this stage version of the 1963 film
Birthright
Finborough Theatre, London
THE Finborough Theatre, under the inspirational leadership of artistic director Neil McPherson, has for over 40 years belied its tiny fringe setting by producing world-class plays. One speciality has been the unearthing of forgotten treasures from an earlier time.
The current show, Birthright, is one such discovery. Written in 1910 by the Irish playwright TC Murray, it immerses us in the grim reality of a farming family whose lives seem cruelly circumscribed by the rules and traditions of their own rural Irish society.
Murray holds a key place in the history of the Abbey Theatre Dublin, his name often breathed alongside the mighty Yeats, Shaw, Synge and O’Casey.
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GEORGE FOGARTY is dazzled by a breathtakingly skillful puppet version of Shakespeare’s greatest love poem
MARY CONWAY applauds the timely revival of Miller’s study of people fatally deformed by the economics of survival
PETER MASON applauds a stage version of Le Carre’s novel that questions what ordinary people have to gain from high-level governmental spying
Although this production was in rehearsal before the playwright’s death, it allows us to pay homage to his life, suggests MARY CONWAY