There is much to enjoy in Adam Penford’s production, which has several stirring performances. Looking as though he has just woken up with a start, Gary Lilburn’s Pat presides over his wayward flock in an amiable manner, but there are hints of threat in the way he sometimes uses his cane as a rod or a rifle. Jonathan Battersby, as an Englishman in Ireland who has gone native with a vengeance, is electrified with the intensity of the mad and driven, and Rhiannon Oliver’s batty soul-saver gushes vigorously, and gives a clarion rendition of “Don’t Muck About With the Moon,” Behan’s plea to Khrushchev when he sent up Sputnik. The young and very pretty Emily Dobbs, founder of Jagged Fence Productions, which is presenting the play, is sweet but not sugary as the chambermaid, and her high-stepping dance of fantasy happiness with the young soldier is a moment of painful delight.
But, the whole of the play is less than the sum of its well-played parts. The prostitutes are too fresh-faced and unused-looking, and the nightmarish-yet-cosy atmosphere is missing, the saggy, baggy, boozy feeling of people who, with nowhere to fall, are lying in the gutter and rejoicing.
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