As an actor, it's always reassuring to know you've got great material with which to work and it doesn't get a whole lot better than that written, and directed, by the affable Paul Gilchrist
We’ve all been there. Trapped in a potentially destructive relationship that is going nowhere. We stay because we can’t be bothered leaving, convincing ourselves that the good out-weighs the bad. Welcome to Stockholm.
Unfortunately, what we see instead is almost the very antithesis of the ethos of innovation and vitality upon which this company was founded. Sadly the production is, at best, pedestrian.
A gifted embroider of words, Friel combines soft lyricism and hard meaning in his play, a tragical comical historical pastoral on a spree and spoiling for a spirited spar.
In the care of Pinchgut Opera’s director, Erin Helyard, this music, formulaic as it indeed is in some respects, sprang off the page into an experience rich in emotions.
Contradiction, conundrum, conflict, racism, misogyny and homophobia run through this play like a main circuit cable snaking through a moral minefield of explosive allegation.