Use the form below to search for tickets on your desired date. Dates from
Synopsis The McKenna family convenes at their remote West of Ireland holiday home to mark the 21st birthday of their late son Gene. Eccentric cousin Bridget appears along the causeway, inviting herself for birthday cake and conversation, and ready to expose a family secret. Even Margaret, the unstoppable mother, and Leo, the calm father, can t hold things together in the face of an unexpected visit from the past.
Eileen Atkins and Imelda Staunton star in the world premiere of Frank McGuinness’ There Came a Gypsy Riding, which opened last night (18 January 2007, previews from 11 January) at north London’s Almeida Theatre, where it continues until 3 March 2007 (See Today’s 1st Night Photos).
The play, directed by Almeida artistic director Michael Attenborough, centres on the McKenna family, who convene at their remote west of Ireland holiday home to mark the 21st birthday of their late son Gene, who killed himself two years earlier. Eccentric cousin Bridget appears, invites herself in for cake, and makes ready to expose a family secret. Also in the cast are Ian McElhinney, Elaine Cassidy and Aidan McArdle.
First night critics were mainly won over by the melodrama mixed with a sharp and witty dialogue by McGuinness, and praised the strong performances of the cast as a family struggling to cope with grief. However, one strongly dissenting voice, Evening Standard critic Nicholas de Jongh, found the play old-fashioned and dull, with Atkins the only almost-saving grace.
Heather Neill on Whatsonstage.com (4 stars) – “Folksy charm, a sensual pleasure in language and story, witchy wisdom, superstition, a dash of music and the power of alcohol - the staple ingredients of Irish drama are all to be found in Frank McGuinness’ latest piece…. McGuinness flirts with sentimentality, trifles with cliché, but at every turn he pre-empts the wallow or the syrupy moment with a sharp joke. These are quick articulate characters who are adept at hiding feelings with familiar bitchy banter. The only duff note comes when Margaret breaks down and the script takes a melodramatic turn. Imelda Staunton tackles this and her character’s rather self-conscious attachment to Keats - another young man who died young - with brave commitment. McGuinness is very much on form at the end: as Margaret leaves she tells Bridget (a magnificently wild, hilarious and touching Eileen Atkins), affectionately, not to let the cottage burn, but if it does to be sure she’s in it.”
Michael Billington in the Guardian (4 stars) – “In Irish drama the dead are always with us…. And, although we never actually see the dead son who drives the action in Frank McGuinness' new play, his presence haunts every line of this elegantly written, exquisitely acted Michael Attenborough production. The situation is classically simple. A family gathers in its Galway holiday home to mark the 21st birthday of Eugene, who committed suicide two years ago; what we see is the divisive nature of grief.... Although we learn a lot about the flawed Eugene, McGuinness is not out to mock false pieties. His theme… is the way ancient superstitions persist even in modern materialist Ireland…. This is highlighted in Bridget, who, in Eileen Atkins' breathtaking performance, dominates the play…. It is a performance of vitality and sadness… Imelda Staunton has a harder task reconciling us to Margaret…. by sheer acting, she persuades us of the character's violent mood switches. Ian McElhinney is unequivocally good as the Dublin businessman who finds wealth cannot disguise grief.”
Benedict Nightingale in The Times (4 stars) – “The performers on stage at the Almeida include Eileen Atkins as a batty yet sly old crone and Imelda Staunton as her cousin by marriage, a tough Donegal peasant turned domineering Dublin academic; but nobody’s presence is more strongly felt than the reason for this grim celebration, the suicide of a 19-year-old boy exactly two years ago. Why do people kill themselves, leaving baffled, troubled relatives behind?.... This is a dense, and, at times, a difficult play that raises plenty of pertinent and not-so-pertinent questions. But the main one is this: how do people cope with suicide? Atkins’ contribution is interestingly inscrutable. She’s the family witch or, as she says, the ‘confused fairy’ who found Gene on that beach and kept his suicide note from his parents. But why? To relieve her loneliness by privately possessing the boy’s last testament? Or just to add tension to a play that threatens to get bogged down in agonised elegy? I don’t know; but I do know about the acting in Michael Attenborough’s production…. Top-notch performances.”
Nicholas de Jongh in the Evening Standard (2 stars) – “If you gave Frank McGuinness' middle-class Irish characters English accents, settled them by the Sussex seaside with a period kitchen, and removed a modest sprinkling of expletives, then There Came a Gypsy Riding could easily be mistaken for an old-fashioned country house drama in Shaftesbury Avenue starring Ralph Richardson, Flora Robson and Margaret Rutherford. It would have opened in 1955 and run for just a few weeks. For McGuinness' unenlightening play about suicide and bereavement is couched in a defunct theatrical form and lacks a dramatic pulse…. Lethargy creeps into Michael Attenborough's torpid production…. It is the haunting Dame Eileen, all staring eyes and wild white wig, who half-saves the evening, by enabling shafts of black comedy to penetrate McGuinness' aimless gloom.”
Folksy charm, a sensual pleasure in language and story, witchy wisdom, superstition, a dash of music and the power of alcohol - the staple ingredients of Irish drama are all to be found in Frank McGuinness’ latest piece. And yet they are not so much relished as subverted. Alcohol, for a start, is celebrated, discussed and feared, but not a drop is drunk on stage.
The McKenna family - parents Leo and Margaret and adult children Simon and Louise - meet at their remote holiday cottage on the west coast of Ireland to celebrate another son’s 21st birthday. Only he isn’t there: Gene committed suicide two years before this fraught, grief-stricken gathering during which the participants struggle to be “normal” under Margaret’s rule. A strong woman who escaped a brutal, poverty-stricken childhood to become a university lecturer, she has decreed that there will be no wallowing, no tears - and no alcohol. Ironically, the family’s considerable wealth comes from selling booze and Gene died after consuming a “fierce” lot of the stuff.
Margaret does not keep the control she plans, due mainly to elderly, mad (but canny) cousin Bridget who lives locally and was present at Gene’s death. Contrary Bridget (a magnificently wild, hilarious and touching Eileen Atkins) chooses this moment to toss a hitherto unmentioned message from Gene into the proceedings. And this is the catalyst for exploring hard truths.
McGuinness flirts with sentimentality, trifles with cliché, but at every turn he pre-empts the wallow or the syrupy moment with a sharp joke. These are quick articulate characters who are adept at hiding feelings with familiar bitchy banter. The only duff note comes when Margaret breaks down and the script takes a melodramatic turn. Imelda Staunton tackles this and her character’s rather self-conscious attachment to Keats - another young man who died young - with brave commitment.
But the really moving moments are much simpler - when Margaret and Leo (Ian McElhinney) throw away the spikiness and turn to each other, and when he weeps suddenly, silently. McGuinness is very much on form at the end: as Margaret leaves she tells Bridget, affectionately, not to let the cottage burn, but if it does to be sure she’s in it.
Director Michael Attenborough has engaged absolutely with McGuinness’ world. The bijou cottage (designed by Robert Jones) is exactly right for the planned happy families scenario, while Aidan McArdle as Simon and Elaine Cassidy as Louise are believably the offspring of their close but warring parents.
We were lucky enough to be among those at the WOS outing to Gypsy Riding on 6th February, and we had a spectacular evening. Everything went right, from finding a parking space right outside the theatre, to having a long chat with the charming and funny Eileen Atkins at the WOS reception afterwards. The play itself was superb, extremely funny but also very moving in places. The subject of the death of a child, even as an adult, is not one that one would normally associate with any sort of humour, but all of the characters had some very funny lines (especially Eileen Atkins -- what an amazing performance). The serious moments were also very well handled by all the cast, especially Imelda Staunton; her "breakdown scene" was heartbreaking. Loved it, want to go again, but no tickets to be had! Just have to pray for a West End transfer. - Louise Dodds-Ely
13 Feb 07
It's the production more than the play that makes the evening. The problem with the play is that it is unevenly written. In the first half, where Bridget gets all the best lines and the rest of the time you're waiting for her to come back on. In the second half, it ventures too far into implausibility and unjustified histrionics. The setting is wonderful and the staging impeccable. Eileen Atkins make the most of her wonderful character. The rest do their best with theirs, though come more into their own in the second half, where they have meaty scenes in an overall story which has now lost its way. Well worth a visit though. - 86.129.60.93)
31 Jan 07
I thought it was crap. - 82.198.250.72)
22 Jan 07
Perhaps this is not quite proper to add a review when the play is still in preview - 12th Jan but I feel compelled to do so whilst the performance is still vivid in my mind. Frank McGuinness is one of the greatest writers of the day and this play just confirms that conviction. In the story, set in the brooding romantic west of Ireland, he takes us on an extraordinary emotional roller coast ride. At times teasing us with flashes of brilliant comedy deftly handled by the wonderful Eileen Atkins in particular - and just when we have been lulled into this cosy comfort zone - we are slapped, hard in the face, by the tragedy which lies at the heart of the play - the suicide of a son. Only a write of McGuinness' experience and stature could pull this off. Great praise must go to the superb Imelda Staunton whose performance as the mother of the lost child is heart wrenching. The rest of the cast were all equally up to it and deserve praise. Michael Attenborough has proved himself yet again as a director of great sensitivity - the Almeida is greatly enhanced by his stewardship. - 172.143.22.158)
Whatsonstage.com - Discount London theatre tickets, theatre news and reviews, Theatre videos, Theatre discussion, National Theatre Listings. Covering London's West End, all of Theatreland and all UK theatre. The best
for London Theatre Ticket Discounts.
