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Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme

This event has now finished Until Jul 18 2009 Hampstead Theatre, Eton Avenue, NW3 3EX Full details & map

Theatre: Off-West End

Time Out says Rate it

With its formalized pairings, sacrificial symbolism, lyrical language and folkloric undertow - played out in John Dove's revival on a simple set that superimposes the fields of the Somme onto the ancient green banks of Boa Island - Frank McGiness's play is like an opera without music, a chamber piece for eight male voices that sing in counterpoint and finally in harmony. The play begins when an old Protestant, besieged during the Troubles, summons the ghosts of his seven fallen comrades to defend Ulster once more. The rest of McGuinness's discordant lament is one long flashback from enrolment through leave to the morning of the fatal battle, during which different forms of allegiance and masculinity are explored. But just as the playwright investigating the Protestant spirit is a born Catholic Republican, the recollecting is done not by the everyman of the group - a friendly young blacksmith - but by Pyper, the unhinged upper-class sculptor who fell in love with him.
This production is no less disconcerting for Dove's sturdy direction. At times twinkling like a malicious Robin Williams, Richard Dormer's Pyper is both magnetic and unknowable as this pathologically antagonistic cat among the already perturbed pigeons. And the whole ensemble shines in characters that reach the fullness of their humanity just before they die.

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