The Play begins with the character of Frank, looking a bit like a greasy Brian Ferry, reciting the names of obscure Welsh villages. It’s an intriguing opening as it all sounds a bit like he’s speaking in tongues. I suspected that the play would then lead into a kind of mock faith healing session. I’m sorry to say it didn’t. What followed was a somewhat contrived performance of a somewhat flowery script. Whether it was the writer or the performers fault is unclear but one of the two seemed to have got lost in the music of the words rather than their meaning. Every movement seemed staged.

Things began to improve with the second monologue, however, (the play consists of four intertwining monologues) & the third was even better. They allowed the fog to clear a little on the content and what was emerging was a reasonably cleverly scripted play. The three different perspectives on similar events weaving together satisfyingly. What was also refreshing was that we weren’t led down the obvious road of analyzing the practice of faith healing but were more concerned with the characters and the narrative. ‘Teddy‘ was particularly entertaining, all be it with a smattering of totally confusing surrealist humour

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For those wanting to see this play on account of it being about Faith Healing be warned, its not. What does unfold may not be quite as entertaining, but it was just as staged, just as clever, and for one section at least, almost as funny. If you’re a fan of the writer – Brian Friel – you should enjoy it, & I was generally well-entertained throughout THREE STARS

Reviewer : Victor Pope

Photography : Eoin Carey