Synopsis

Inishfree might seem like a quaint Irish town, but fierce evangelist Thomas Magill knows better. He knows jovial Dwain Flynn is a miserable drunk, that Timmy O’Leary enslaves his lovely mother and that sweet Mrs Cleary is a blasphemous flirt.

It is down to Thomas, with God on his shoulder, to save this sinful place. But the townsfolk are not listening, an angel is misbehaving and a barking dog will not be silenced. Just how far will Thomas go in his quest for salvation?

‘The electrifying Cillian Murphy… Enda Walsh, one of the most fiercely individual voices in the theatre today… a seductive and terrifying portrait of a luminous madness that dares you not to look away.’ New York Times

Cillian Murphy – whose film work includes 28 Days Later, Breakfast on Pluto and Inception – is reunited with Enda Walsh for the first time following the phenomenally successful Disco Pigs. He returns to the London stage to play the population of an entire town in a tour-de-force solo performance of epic proportions.

Our Review:

Michael Coveney - 19 April 2012

The spell-binding Irish actor Cillian Murphy fills the Lyttelton stage – no mean feat in itself – with a fantastic, whirring monologue of small town life and flickering faith written and directed by Enda Walsh.

The two of them first collaborated on Disco Pigs, which ignited the Edinburgh Festival fifteen years ago, Murphy playing a raver on the spree in Cork city, or rather “Pork sity.” It was a blasted, bracing, bravado view of the underworld.

Now he’s Thomas Magill, an introverted loner on the isle of Inisfree (“I will arise and go now, and go to Inisfree,” begins the great Yeats poem) clutching the memories and conversations of his parents – his mother’s on spools of tape, his father’s in the cemetery) – dishing the dirt, fighting with dogs, succumbing to cheesecake in Mrs Macleary’s café, writing it all down in his notebook.

[WOS_QU@TE]#This is a ...

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Latest User Review

cillyfilly - 25 June 2012:

Simply stunning. Have seen it twice as I was worried I might have missed nuances the first time. Enjoyed it more the second. Cillian is one the greatest actors of his generation living in Britain and if he gets dual nationality and does more work like this, will be knighted in my lifetime I hope. Such an intelligent, sensitive, funny and brave actor not to mention deeply sexy....

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