“So all this terror has been for absolutely nothing…. Four dead fellas, two dead cats ..me hairstyle ruined, me sister broken-hearted”. So laments Davey, one of the dipshit characters on display in Martin McDonagh’s THE LIEUTENANT OF INISHMORE.
A farce full of fecking eejits infected by fervour as freedom fighters, which serves as a license to kill and a mask for apparently inbred sadism, THE LIEUTENANT OF INISHMORE makes a bloody joke of the infantilism of terrorists.
Padraic, a lunatic psychopath who was too mad for membership in the IRA, who likes torching fish and chip shops and torturing anyone he has a mind to, is a cat tragic, especially for his own Wee Thomas, who he has left in the care of his dad, Donny.
When Wee Thomas is apparently brained by thick as a brick bicyclist, Davey, it proves the catalyst for a catastrophic cascade of carnage. In a desperate attempt at deceit, Donny and Davey conspire to disguise a substitute pussy with disastrous results.
McDonagh’s dialogue has all the hallmarks of a congenital eavesdropper combined with the instincts of a Peeping Tom in this wickedly funny play.
An impressive set by Tom Bannerman, all angled drawbridges and gantries with ropes and chains and wrappings of plastic create a torture chamber askew and absurd.
An animatronic mouser is a scene stealer.
Director Deborah Mulhall takes off the safety catch of this smoking gun of a show and her cast comes out blazing, taking the audience hostage with its horrendous hilarity.
Lloyd Allison-Young plays the sadistic Padraic with a dash of moustached swash buckle, a child in charge of a charnel house.
Alice Birbara is the feisty Mairead, the only female in the play, a sharp shooting, straight talking woman smitten by Padraic and his pistol packing swagger. To boot, the couple have a shared interest in murder and moggies – a marriage made in mayhem heaven.
James McCrudden as Donny, Padraic’s dad and self-confessed mammy trampler, plays the duffer as a drop kick short of a punt, while Steve Corner as the monocular maniac, Christy, sporting an eye patch Padraic would gouge for, does a fine line in frustration and famous last words.
If you like tinctures of tenderness, a rib tickle and a belly laugh amongst your torture, THE LIEUTENANT OF INISHMORE is the cat’s whiskers.
THE LIEUTENANT OF INISHMORE by Martin McDonagh plays New Theatre, 542 King Street, Newtown till May 26
