Theatre review: Aristocrats

…so the agent says “And what do you call this act?”

Aristocrats is the latest in the Donald and Margot Warehouse’s occasional focus on Irish theatre, and the second Brian Friel play in London this summer after Translations – written in 1979, this immediately predates it. Tom (Paul Higgins) is an American academic writing a paper on Irish Catholic manor houses and the families who’ve lived in them for centuries. He’s doing research at Ballybeg Hall, once presided over by Judge O’Donnell (James Laurenson,) who ever since suffering a stroke has been confined to his room in a state of confusion, cared for 24/7 by his eldest daughter Judith (Eileen Walsh.) Youngest daughter Claire (Aisling Loftus,) heavily medicated after a lifetime of depression and anxiety, is about to get married so their siblings Alice (Elaine Cassidy) and Casimir (David Dawson) have returned for the wedding from their homes in England and Germany respectively; a fourth sister is a nun who hasn’t returned from her mission in Africa for years.

Theatre review: John Ferguson

In one of the Northern Irish mini-seasons they occasionally have, the Finborough Theatre are staging a pair of neglected Ulster plays. First up is the main feature, John Ferguson, dating from the early 20th century but set in the 1880s, in a failing farm near a small town. John Ferguson (Ciaran McIntyre) is getting old and sick, and has had to ask his son Andrew (Alan Turkington) to drop his plans to become a minister, in order to help him tend the land. This isn't going to be enough though, and the family is about to default on the mortgage. A possible solution comes from the well-off but weak-willed grocer Jimmy (Paul Reid,) who offers to pay off the farm's debts if John's daughter Hannah (Zoe Rainey) marries him. Hannah dithers over whether to enter a loveless marriage to save the family farm, and as she changes her mind events take a violent turn.