If there’s one thing we’re good at in this wee country it’s being able to laugh at ourselves even through the worst of times and it’s this dark sense of humour which plays out so well in The History of The Troubles (According to my Da).
Celebrating 20 years since first hitting the stage this wonderful collaboration between Martin Lynch, Conor Grimes and Alan McKee came back to Belfast this week with a sellout run at the Grand Opera House.
The play starts in 1969 as Gerry Courtney (played by Marty Maguire), an ordinary Belfast man and Rolling Stones fanatic, welcomes his baby son Colm into the world and civil unrest hits the city. A time when many including Gerry thought, “it’ll all be over in a day or two”.
It would have been easy for the play to get bogged down in the darkness of Gerry’s struggle to lead an ordinary life dodging the bombs and bullets and dealing with the heartache of loss.
Instead, we get a satirical view of the conflict through his eyes and the eyes of those he encounters.
The fast, witty dialogue, quick quips and well-conceived characters played perfectly by comedy duo Grimes and McKee see what could have been a morose affair play out as a hilarious collection of mini stories.
Everyone knew a Maggie Morrelli and a Felix back in the day.
Maggie is the rough millie who no man would go home to short his wages while Felix is the conspiracy theorist, the one who believes every rumour and made sure to pass it on.
Then there is Grimes’s Fireball who runs the incinerator at the RVH. An inspired character who brings much of the comedy value to the play and often had the audience in roars of laughter.
Grimes and McKee do a superb job seamlessly switching between characters in what is sometimes quite a fast paced production.
The set is minimal, with not much more than an armchair, a couple of stools and a dozen pictures hanging on the back wall, including iconic images of Bobby Sands and the infamous picture of Gerry Adams with his arm around Brendan “The Dark” Hughes.
Not too many plays could get away with such a sparse stage design so it is a testament to the performances of Grimes, McKee and Maguire that the lack of props really didn’t matter.
Although The History of The Troubles is primarily a comedy there are a number of shocking and sad moments scattered throughout with an unexpected murder just to bring us all back to reality.
It doesn’t shy away from the issues of death and the fragility of life, shamelessly highlighting the futility of what many of us lived through.
Undoubtedly, we could have been given just another potted history like what we were all taught in school but you’ll never find this play on any history GCSE syllabus.
The History of The Troubles (According to my Da) is running at Market Place Theatre in Armagh on February 14 and 15 with one show at the Millennium Forum in Derry on February 18.
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