Musical review: The Commitments, BGE Theatre, Dublin

Alan Parker’s 1991 adaptation of Roddy Doyle’s The Commitments is one of the great dividing moments in modern Irish popular culture.

To some it was a confident evocation of contemporary Ireland, capturing both the despair and the devil may care irrepressibility of the pre-Celtic Tiger era.

But many saw old cliches replaced by new ones, as the cast swore and drank their way through an unlikely career as a soul band.

One kind of Irish “other”, it might have have been argued, had been replaced by something no less insidious. The message was that Ireland remained a rainy purgatory, populated by foul-mouthed peasants — only now they could sing, dance and play saxophone a bit.

Your response to the stage musical, with a book by Doyle, will thus likely depend on your feelings about the film. The show debuted two years ago in London and, with its gale-force coarseness, feels written for a UK rather than Irish audience.

Still, judged as exuberant soul revue rather than case study of Haughey-era Dublin, it’s a blast, with the young cast romping through full-throated renderings of standards such as ‘Proud Mary’, ‘You Keep Me Hanging On’ and ‘Mustang Sally’.

The performances are generally excellent, with Andrew Linnie convincingly mixing swagger and naivety as blues-fixated band manager Jimmy, Brian Gilligan persuasively boorish as boozy vocalist Deco and Alex McMorran spreading twinkling chaos as Joey “The Lips” Fagan.

Also impressive is Sutra Gilmour’s set design, which conjures the claustrophobia of mid 80s terraced housing and the possibility of adventure and release a heaving nightclub held.

Less successful alas is former Coronation Street star Kevin Kennedy who, as Jimmy’s father, slogs along with an accent closer to Cheshire than Crumlin.

But that’s a minor distraction. Get past the endless “auld Dublin” cliches and The Commitments is a charming valentine to the thrills, chills and spills of old fashioned rock ’n roll.

• Until Oct 29