Theatre review: What The Animals Say

Playwright David Ireland has fans among Hollywood stars but the 50-seat Finborough Theatre remains a regular venue for some of his older work, and now that includes his debut play, which features a couple of men trying to impress one such star. But being a work by a writer who's inspired by the scars left by decades of sectarianism, the star in question is one who's not exactly known for embracing all peoples and beliefs. What The Animals Say features two characters who grew up in Northern Ireland but, having premiered at Òran Mór in Glasgow, its starting point is the Scottish city's own history of Catholic vs Protestant rivalry, most famously expressed through the two local football clubs. Eddie (Robbie Martin) is a professional footballer from Belfast, who after a fight with Alex Ferguson ended up transferred to Celtic - despite being a Protestant.

He's also on the Northern Ireland squad, and on his way back to Belfast to train for an international match he meets Jimmy (Matthew Blaney) in the waiting room for the Stranraer ferry, and they realise they went to school together.

Jimmy is an aspiring actor who's not had much luck getting parts so far, but has managed to get an audition for a new film Mel Gibson's making about The Troubles. The two chat and awkwardly catch up, never having had a lot in common before and even less now, but they part on friendly enough terms. In the second scene they reunite some months later on the movie set - but it's Eddie who's got the trailer, and the role.

Having been written for a lunchtime theatre slot the play is inevitably short but while it doesn't have a lot of plot it throws in a lot of things that would become Ireland's trademarks - a very dark sense of humour that includes a lot of casually racist and homophobic language from the start, a sense that these men being brought up in a world built on division has traumatised them in different, perverse ways, and a blokey masculinity always teetering on violence.

The chemistry between Blaney and Martin is the kind that really plays on this tension, and gives Harry Burton's production a restless comic energy - the show also gives designer Alex Marker another opportunity to show how he can fit a big set change into this tiny theatre. Short, definitely not sweet, but with early signs of the mix of comedy and cruelty that have served the playwright so well since.

What The Animals Say by David Ireland is booking until the 24th of October at the Finborough Theatre.

Running time: 1 hour straight through.

Photo credit: Gavin Watson.