home | accolade | articles | acting | festivals | guestbook | groups | greenroom | links | news | plays 1 productions | photos | quotes | reviews

spacer.gif (810 bytes)

DONNY BOY
Bournemouth Little Theatre Club
Jameson Road
Bournemouth
October 2002

THEATRE, at its best, has the power to shock and provoke strong feelings in its audiences. This drama, brilliantly directed by Jack Snell, does both, even though the Irish troubles are, for most of us, simply something we read about rather than experience first-hand.
It is set in present-day Ulster where the teenage brain-damaged Donny, who has brought home a gun just used in a murder, lives with his mother.
As both an insight into the minds of those living in a strife-ridden country and a shocking portrayal of what appears to be an incestuous mother-son relationship, the play makes for uncomfortable viewing – but the performances make the discomfort a small price to pay.
Lin Denning gives what must be the performance of her life as the whisky-sodden, sluttish Ma, with an Irish accent honed to perfection. Luke Murphy is every inch the stuttering, backward child-man struggling to exist in a world he will never understand, while Tim Garton also excels as neurotic loser Cahill.
An outstanding set plus stirring mood music from the likes of the Dubliners and Pogues add the finishing gloss to a first-class production that was well worth the three-year wait it took to get it to the Club’s stage.

Linda Kirkman
Courtesy of the Bournemouth Daily Echo


last Back