The House Must Win review: Tommy Tiernan among the stars of Mick Flannery adaptation
Tabitha Smyth and Tommy Tiernan in The House Must Win, the stage adaptation of Mick Flannery’s debut album. Picture: Ruth Medjber
★★★★☆
An adaptation of was previously staged in Cork in 2019, and Mick Flannery’s debut album from 2005 is again imagined here, rewritten and retitled as in a musical directed with aplomb by Julie Kelleher.
It might be set in 1970s Co Galway, but the vibe is sort of Nick Cave or Tom Waits-style Americana meets Tom Murphy, with the lore of the Wild West transposed to small-town, zero-sum Ireland. Not so much Murder Ballads then as Murder Ballynahown, with a nod to Got all that?
It’s a conceit that doesn’t really stand up to close scrutiny. At some cringe-inducing moments, as characters sing of how the “ain’t gonna” do this and “ain’t gonna” do that, you half expect they’ll be “lighting out for the territories” any minute.
Of course, people really did dream of escaping from these parts of the world, and for America typically, but the plot driver of the “last train” out of town sits oddly when you just think, arrah, they could always catch the bus to Galway if they missed it. Not quite the mythic grandeur of the Old West, then, but, at times, an unintended echo of the comedy Pat McCabe or Flann O’Brien found in their own Hiberno-cowboy mashups.
Flannery’s story centres on the two sons of a departed, hard-drinking gambler: the more responsible Frank (an excellent Naill McNamee) and the apple that didn’t fall far from the tree, Luther (an equally effective Fergus Walsh-Peelo).They are both in pursuit of one woman: Grace (brilliantly sung by Tabitha Smyth). She’s the daughter of the local publican, played angrily and effectively by Tommy Tiernan (though you wished he’d take off his hat so we could see his face properly).
It’s his pub that frames the action, with a sweeping ramp curled around, making for awkward entrances and exits, it must be said, but effectively creating a sense of small-town claustrophobia, as well as giving the excellent and versatile seven-strong band something to stand in and around.
Fittingly, the music is the highlight, a palette ranging across folk, jazz, blues, country and rock, changing with character and moment: soaring ballads for Smyth, say, or propulsive rhythm to accommodate Tiernan’s flat delivery.
Nixon might be in the White House, but poker’s the only game in town here. Again, we have to suspend our disbelief about the high-stakes game and its players, given these are Frank, who’s broke; John, a railway worker who never seems to have the price of a pint; and a publican (Tiernan) who can’t pay his staff. John McCarthy’s uptight villain, Paulie (the bank manager – Tom Murphy would approve), is the only one of this quartet of card sharps you could imagine ponying up for chips.
Still, has plenty of ways to win you over. Damian Kearney, as the hard-drinking rowdy John, is a typical example; his scene-stealing clowning is a hoot, but does necessary work, too, as if he’s a commentator on the action in the style of a Shakespearean wise fool.
It’s best, then, to go with the flow here, right up to the unabashedly melodramatic finale. There were audible gasps, even tears, from the willing audience. Preposterous? Perhaps. Enjoyable? Certainly. Roof-raising cheers and applause at the end? Definitely. Whatever incongruities there are in it makes for a memorable night.
- Until May 3 at The Pavilion. At the Everyman, Cork, May 6-16
