The Shaughraun review: Druid serve up five-star production at Galway Arts Festival 

Garry Hynes gives the Victorian melodrama a hugely-enjoyable pantomime twist 

Aaron Monaghan and Marie Mullen in Druid's production of The Shaughraun at Galway International Arts Festival.  Picture: Ros Kavanagh 

The Shaughraun, Town Hall Theatre, Galway ★★★★★

How do you follow something like the intense, dark, broody Macbeth that Druid served up in Galway last year? With something completely different: a Victorian melodrama reimagined as a panto that at the same time places its author, Dion Boucicault, among the greats of Irish literature, and – despite his reputation as a “mere” entertainer – finds that he is not out of place there at all (at all).