Theatre review

A Skull in Connemara, Martin McDonagh’s macabre comedy about a gravedigger, is the least performed play from his Leenane Trilogy. But it deserves to be seen by a wide audience, on the evidence of this touring production, from Decadent Theatre Company. Despite its grisly subject matter, it is very funny. It conjures up a Gothic rural Ireland where nothing is sacred, not even the disinterring of bones from the graveyard to make room for new remains.

Garrett Keogh plays Mick, the gravedigger, who has to dig up his late wife Oona’s remains, with the help of young Mairtín. This sparks rumours in the village about Mick’s involvement in Oona’s sudden death. Mick is quick-tempered, and mischievous with his tales of what happens to corpses. But he is mostly exercised by being, as he sees it, an innocent victim of gossip. Keogh’s performance is of a defensive man who claims to be more sinned against than sinning. Doubts as to his culpability are planted in the audience’s mind thanks to the gauche Mairtín, who claims to have an inside track as to what happened to Oona.