Lyric, Belfast
Anna Healy and Patrick O’Kane give nuanced performances as a volatile, long-married couple bunkered in a cottage that’s being slowly engulfed by fireIt is difficult to concentrate on writing a memoir when a nuclear reactor is flashing nearby and neighbours are killing themselves. Playwright John Morton and director Jimmy Fay wring maximum dark humour from this dystopian two-hander, set in 2048 at the end of days. As Liam (Patrick O’Kane) and Edel (Anna Healy) are bunkered in a remote cottage on a mountainside, gradually being engulfed by smoke and fire, they have no idea how many more hours they have left before everything is obliterated.In the high stakes of this drama, the focus is not on possible causes of the global catastrophe, but on bringing this long-married couple to crisis point as their time is running out. What plays out, bleakly, are the different ways each character attempts to reach some kind of reckoning with their lives: through drugs and alcohol, manic boogieing or tentative prayer. While Edel tries to contact their adult children and friends, to stay in touch with the outside world on patchy phone connections, the conversations and media bulletins all bring news of death and horror. Continue reading...
Tuesday 28 October 2025
.theguardian - 1 days ago
Denouement review – darkly funny reckoning with relationship dystopia
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