"The Playboy of the Western World" by J M Synge

Nottingham Lace Market Theatre

First staged in 1907 as a three act play, set in County Mayo, Ireland. It's the story of Christy Mahon, a young man running away from his farm, claiming he killed his father. He finds himself in Michael James Flaherty's public house where he meets Flaherty's daughter, Margaret, known as Pegeen Mike (daughter of Mike).

He tells his story of how he killed his wicked father and gets the sympathy of all the girls and the admiration of the male punters, all bar one, Margaret's fiance Shawn Keogh, who is of low intelligence, the opposite of Pegeen Mike. Pegeen falls for the good looking Christy and calls of the engagement to Shawn announcing she wants to marry Christy.

Christy becomes the town's sporting hero, but then an unexpected visitor turns up to show their hero in a different light.

Adam Goodchild (Christy) is well cast as the handsome young Irishman with the blarney charm and is convincing in the role. His accent is one of the few constantly accurate ones in the cast.

Ali Patrick-Smith (Pegeen Mike) is the first one you see in the play and is also the last and from start to finish her accent is spot on. There's that lovely sing song rise and fall in her voice, even when she plays angry, and more so when she is flirty. It sounds natural. She is fiesty and flirty and knows how to show people the door when she feels like it. Consistent is the word with Ali.

Richard Fife plays Old Mahon who apparently returns to life after the spade blow to his head, and again another convincing accent, as well as a pretty convincing head wound. Full marks for the make up in this production.

David Hope (Michael Faherty) plays quite a convincing "tipsy" person. I wonder how much method acting went into this performance! This is David's first play for the Lace Market Theatre, so I look forward to what he does next.

Anne McCarroll (Widow Quinn) looked like she enjoyed playing the cradle snatching widow, trying to lure Christy back to hers. A very relaxed and fun performance.

James Whitby makes his Lace Market Theatre debut as the slightly dim fiance Shawn Keogh and completing the cast list are Roger Watson (Yorkie Cullen), Glenn Murphy (Jimmy Farrell), Rosina Reading (Sara Tansley), Jemma-Dawn Froggitt (Susan Brady) - two more Christy fans, and Malcolm Edwards (Bell Man).

Loved the set, designed by David Hope and some nice lighting work by Allan Green and Rose Dudley. plenty of appropriate props for an Irish pub and the sound design by Jack Harris created another world outside the pub front door.

There's plenty of laughs, well maybe chuckles, to be had once you tune into the language and the play rattles along at a nice pace, something I know that director Bex Mason is so good at maintaining.

It's not a long play and you won't find yourself, or shouldn't find yourself glancing at your watch. This is partly due to the storyline and partly due to Bex keeping the story tight and the action and script unlaboured.

Read the original article here.

The Playboy of the Western World, Lace Market Theatre - Review

Your reviewer has to come clean. This is the first time he has seen a straight-down-the-line Playboy of the Western World as written by J M Synge rather than an updated and/or relocated adaptation of the work.

That said, it would seem from this production that the original play hasn't worn at all well. For a farcical comedy, it isn't nowadays especially funny; and considering that its premiere in 1907 provoked an out and out riot, it isn't at all shocking.

The story is simple. A young man appears in the village – we're in County Mayo in the west of Ireland – claiming to have murdered his father. Far from condemning him, the locals revel in the horror of the crime: the men hail him as a hero; the women, especially a widow and the barkeeper's daughter, fall for him. Eventually his claim is found to be bogus and his prestige collapses.

It's very wordy. One of the most pleasing elements of the play presented here is the extravagant and poetic stream of speech issuing from the mouths of poor, uneducated and unsophisticated country people. And it's mingled with the language of the peculiarly Irish Catholic religiosity of the period.

The dialogue presents a problem for the cast which isn't entirely overcome. Especially at the start, it's difficult to understand what some of the characters are talking about. But the appropriate accent is mostly done well.

Some of the acting is a trifle over-exuberant, but there are good performances, especially from Richard Fife, as Old Mahon, the distinctly un-murdered father. His useless son Christopher (Lace Market Theatre newcomer Adam Goodchild), the would-be playboy of the title, is also fun.

And, particularly in the closing scene, Ali Patrick-Smith helps to make Margaret Flaherty, the sadly disappointed daughter, into a figure of real pathos.

Read the original article here.