Prime Cut Productions is first out of the traps to celebrate Beckett's centenary, with an excellent, respectful production of his 1957 one-act masterpiece, Endgame. Director Mark Lambert downplays the production's unique selling point of an all-Northern Irish cast by having the actors smooth out their accents, which keeps the meanings of the text open rather than placing the play's depiction of forced enclosure and servitude in an Ulster context.
While new meanings and resonances may have been limited by this choice, there is nothing lacking in the cast's playing, which captures the dread and despair behind the play's compulsively repeated actions and dark comedy. Thanks to bang-up costume and makeup work from Monica Frawley, the 40-ish actor Conleth Hill looks magnificently convincing as the elderly, wheelchair-bound Hamm - flowing grey locks, big Santa beard, and a faded red dressing gown indicating a grander past.
Hill uses his gift for high camp to bring out the ham in Hamm. The character comes off as a self-conscious old prima donna; his voice rises plaintively as he badgers Clov: "Is it not time for my painkiller?" Hill modulates his performance brilliantly so that the audience vacillates between hating Hamm for his petulance and selfishness, pitying him for being so pathetic, and being moved by his bouts of regret and clarity.
Frankie McCafferty, with his tiny, spindly frame and pronounced limp, also makes a strong visual impact as Clov, exaggerating the repetitive nature of the character's physical business. There is a strong complicity between McCafferty and Hill, and their exchanges hit the right balance between comic routine and master-servant power exchange.
Ian McElhinney and Stella McCusker make the most of their brief interjections as Hamm's dustbin-confined parents; their childlike, utterly dependent state is genuinely disturbing.
· Until February 18. Box office: 028 9033 4455
