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: Dublin Oldschool

Inspired by a real-life encounter that sounds full of more coincidences that anything in the play itself, Emmet Kirwan writes and performs Dublin Oldschool, the story of a drug-fuelled Bank Holiday weekend during a heatwave. Kirwan plays Jason, a record shop employee in his late twenties who holds onto the hope of becoming a DJ, and is prone to letting people take advantage of him on the promise of helping with this career change. This particular weekend he's been told he can do a set if he takes care of a visiting superstar DJ's "entertainment" needs, but that's just one of a series of incidents as he keeps trying different drugs to keep him from actually having to go home. Over the three days he keeps bumping into a homeless heroin addict: His older brother Daniel, who's returned to Dublin after several years missing.