Still waters

The Weir in the West End, and more cultural treats

Brendan Gleeson in The Weir at the Harold Pinter. Photo: Rich Gilligan

NOTE: I forgot to put star ratings on this when I published it. So I’ve added them.

Sometimes, somebody does something so incongruous, it feels like it must, must be a joke.

What I’ve seen

I mean, may the odds ever be in his favour, but I’m absolutely agog to find out how Irish playwright Conor McPherson is going to put his stamp on the fantasy-action behemoth that is The Hunger Games musical, coming to the Troubadour Canary Wharf in about a month’s time.

Especially after revisiting his riveting but incredibly low-key 1997 play The Weir, on at the Harold Pinter Theatre until December 6, directed by McPherson and starring Brendan Gleeson in his West End debut. Nobody even thinks about cocking a crossbow, or if they do they’re not letting on.

Set in a pub one evening somewhere in rural Ireland, it follows a simple structure, with the arrival, one by one, of four customers and the pub landlord, to spend an evening sharing spooky stories and scraping away emotional layers in a gentle, occasionally devastating excavation.

Gleeson, 70, is Jack, the local mechanic. Jack was originally written as being in his 50s, but here you get the feeling that this kind, witty, lonely man has been more or less the same for the last 30 years at least, ruefully accepting of a stasis that, he reveals much later, has held him back for far longer.

He’s joined by landlord Brendan (Owen McDonnell, just terribly, terribly nice), Jim, an auld boy (also originally a bit younger, but here played with a sweet dodderiness by Seán McGinley), and Tom Vaughan-Lawlor’s Finbar, a hyperactive and rather flash local businessman who comes bustling in full of excitement and importance to introduce the guarded but amiable Valerie (Kate Philips), a mysterious woman somewhere in her mid-30s who has just rented a house in the village.

The stage is set for absolutely nothing to happen, except for friendly chatter, efforts to make Valerie feel welcome, which organically morph into the telling of what pass for ghost stories – until Valerie tells her own, one which cuts to the quick and shifts the tenor of the show.

The performances are all gorgeous, fully textured with plenty of depth, and it’s a real ensemble piece. Gleeson can command the stage when required, but he doesn’t dominate, holding back when it’s not his moment, his Jack a benign presence with a touch of sadness. Vaughan-Lawlor is a very funny, slightly awkward Finbar.

It’s a lovely portrait of rural life, of how it can be both rich and spare, drawn without drama but clearly expressing the swift and sometimes treacherous emotional currents that roil beneath still waters – the weir of the title being an obvious metaphor.

This is a gorgeous play; simply but finely wrought, a heartfelt tribute in itself to ordinary humanity. He wrote it when he was 25, which is annoying. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️