Theatre review: Bas***d – A Family History

Project Arts Centre, Dublin

Oddie Braddell’s one-man show is certainly endearing, aglow with the actor’s natural warmth and comic presence, yet it struggles with a disjointed structure and a failure to clearly develop its themes.

The cue for this autobiographical piece is the existence in the Braddell family tree of a couple of notorious ‘bastards’. Bloody Braddell was a ruthless officer in Oliver Cromwell’s army, while John Waller Braddell was a detested land agent who evicted more tenants than anybody else during the Famine. Oddie has great fun re-enacting scenes from both men’s lives, rampaging around the floor killing Papists in the guise of Bloody Braddell, or laying in the throes of death as John Waller Braddell. (Hilariously, the latter found time to dictate a written testimony in which he charged his killer with shooting him and leaving him in a “state of dying”.)

The real heart of the piece, however, concerns the awkward place of the Protestant Anglo-Irish community in Ireland. Though the privilege and traditions associated with this community have gradually collapsed, Oddie’s upbringing in this community has marked his identity in a way that somehow unfairly undermines his Irishness. This concern with belonging is bolstered by a sub-thread that explores the actor’s uneasy relationship with his father, a very personal segment in which the actor risks a lot, but which feels like it could be made more central still.

In the end, a better structure and a tad more imagination might have turned this piece from something very enjoyable to something genuinely outstanding. Yet, despite its small shortcomings, the plentiful laughs and the poignant sincerity with which Oddie lets it all hang out offer much to savour.