The Whiteheaded Boy review: Cork playwright's classic gets an impressive makeover at the Abbey 

Lennox Robinson's play from 1916 is recast in 1980s Cork, complete with a soundtrack featuring Blondie and the Boomtown Rats

Peter McGann, Anna Healy and Fionnuala Gygax in The Whiteheaded Boy, at the  Abbey. Picture: Patricio Cassinoni

The Whiteheaded Boy, Abbey Theatre, Dublin ★★★★☆

 Lennox Robinson occupies at once a central and uncertain place in the history of Irish theatre. He set his sights on the Abbey Theatre early after seeing, in 1907, a touring production in the Opera House of his native Cork. “The world of the theatre … opened to my eyes,” he wrote, and it was the start of a long career at the National Theatre as a playwright and administrator.