Review: The Walworth Farce

Arts Festival

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The Walworth Farce by Enda Walsh, directed by Mikel Murfi.
The Opera House, until March 21

Theatrical games are afoot in The Walworth Farce, a tragi-comedy set 15 floors up in a squalid South London council flat where Irishman Dinny and his two sons, Blake and Sean, live in their own insulated world and where they carry out a daily ritual that they have apparently been doing for nearly 20 years.

The ritual is a performance of a farce that has been written by Dinny about his fictional life in Ireland, his departure from Cork and his arrival in London. The three men perform the farce with furious action, disguises, cross-dressing, outrageous jokes and madcap situations.

Overseas critics have described it as if it were being performed by the Three Stooges.

I would agree with this but add that, like the Three Stooges, the farce is very rarely funny, yet its scenes go on ad infinitum played at a frenetic speed and very, very loudly till it simply becomes tedious in the extreme.

And then reality steps into this mad theatrical whirl in the form of Hayley, a Tesco checkout girl who has taken a liking to Sean, the only one allowed out to buy food.

Hayley's presence creates problems for Dinny but she is eventually brought into the action and slowly we gather, if we hadn't already guessed some time before, that Dinny is using fantasy and ritual to hide darker, unpleasant truths.

It is also made clear that this is a national failing - not a message that many Irish will want to hear on St Patrick's Day.

The point is actually made evident right from the beginning when we see the three getting ready for the day's performance (vocal and physical exercises and the preparation of wigs and costumes) and hear the dulcet tones of Bing Crosby as he sings When Irish Eyes are Smiling. At the end we hear him again, singing An Irish Lullaby.

The acting is deliberately way, way over the top and meant to be bad.

Even when it all calms down a bit and the characters become, for a short time, human beings, it is still hard to find any sympathy for any of them - except for Hayley, who is played most movingly by Mercy Ojelade.

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