Little Gem

Synopsis

Three generations of Dublin women. One extraordinary year. A journey of courage, comedy and romance in the award-winning hit of the 2009 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Happy-go-lucky Amber, fresh out of school, is high on life, double sambucas and boyfriend Paul. That is until the 'indigestion' starts. Her mother Lorraine attacks a customer at work and now she's seeing a 'head doctor'. She's told to do one nice thing for herself each week. Time to sign up for salsa classes. Nanny Kay, meanwhile, is finding life on the wrong side of sixty frustrating. Ailing husband Gem doesn't like the neighbours coming in to 'mind' him, and she's missing more than just his conversation. And if all that wasn't bad enough, Little Gem makes his presence felt and life is never the same again.

Our Review:

Michael Coveney - 20 April 2010

Three women, three generations. Elaine Murphy’s debut play Little Gem, first seen in Dublin in 2008 and at last year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe, deposits a Dublin grandmother, her daughter and granddaughter on three chairs and lets them loose on the audience in rotating monologues.

It’s an Irish thing, this. Good, vivid anecdotal writing, but not exactly a play. The past master of this form is Conor McPherson, but Murphy doesn’t yet pack a real dramatic punch, or twist our expectations out of kilter, even though she tells a good domestic story.

Paul Meade’s production for the Guna Nua Theatre Company is a litany of love, sex, birth and death over the course of one year. Amber (Sarah Greene) is a party girl with an unbelievably thick Dublin accent who gets pregnant by the wrong man, while her mother Lorraine (Amelia Crowley) is going off her head, and to salsa classes in Temple Bar.

Sitting between them is [Ani...

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Latest User Review

Jackie - 29 April 2010:

The clue is in the title!!...

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