FIVE STARS

 

It is an irony presumably intended to be recognised as such that the titular Cripple of Inishmaan — an Irish lad eager to make it big in the fillums — should be portrayed in this revival of Martin McDonagh’s justly famous 1996 National Theatre success by a young actor who has done just that.

Daniel Radcliffe makes another shrewd move (after Equus) in his post-Harry Potter career as the latest big name — following Judi Dench, Ben Whishaw and Simon Russell Beale — strutting the stage of the Noël Coward Theatre with the Michael Grandage Company.

Actually, not so much strutting as scuttling, his character of Cripple Billy being sorely afflicted in left arm and leg by a condition unspecified in McDonagh’s script but, from evidence within it, almost certainly cerebral palsy. Radcliffe took instruction from a medical specialist in the field about its effect on movement — evidence of a meticulous approach to the role that is apparent in every aspect of his stellar performance, Irish accent included.

That his is a star turn is clear from the whoops and cheers ringing to the rafters at the curtain call. Observe Potter-power, too, at the box office, with almost all seats sold for the run (though some at £10 are available each day in person at the theatre box office).

Despite this, thanks in part to Grandage’s well-judged direction, the production engenders a feeling throughout of ensemble work at its best, all nine members of the cast collaborating to supply a compelling, if at times depressing, picture of life on the island of Inishmaan in 1934.

The story is based on a real-life event, the filming by documentarist Robert Flaherty of Man of Aran.

Billy wants in on the action once news of the crew’s coming is brought to the shop eccentrically run (all tinned peas) by his adoptive aunts Kate (Ingrid Craigie) and Eileen (Gillian Hanna) courtesy of the comic one-man intelligence agency, Johnnypateenmike (Pat Shortt). This gobby Irishman —antithesis of the taciturn boatman Babbybobby (Padraic Delaney) —lightens the play’s tone, too, in a pact of mutual loathing with his nonagenarian mother (June Watson). While he plies her with copious poteen in defiance of the easy-going doctor (Gary Lilburn), she cheerily glugs it back, showing no indication at all that she will play the role intended for her and drop dead.

At the opposite end of the age scale, we are given plenty to amuse us in Conor MacNeill’s seven-year-old short-trousered Bartley McCormick. As focused on sweeties as on telescopes, he all too often finds himself victim of the obsession that afflicts his elder sister Helen (Sarah Greene). This is for smashing eggs over people’s heads. This good-looking minx, much in receipt of the amorous attentions of the local priesthood, also stirs the dormant sexual urges of young Billy. His ambition here seems as unlikely of fulfilment as his hopes for the fillums. But, hey, what of the luck of the Irish?

 

Noël Coward Theatre
Until August 31
0844 482 5141
MichaelGrandage Company.com