The History of the Troubles (According to my Da) by Martin Lynch
Reviewed by Colin Devine
Socialist View No. 10, Spring 2003
THIS BLACK comedy, which is currently touring across the country, is an
entertaining swipe at a host of Northern Ireland characters, many of whom are
instantly recognisable.
Written by Lynch, and assisted by Conor Grimes and Alan McKee, both well known
Belfast actors, the play is full of comedic references and deals with how the
big events impacted on the lives of ordinary people.
It is narrated by Ivan Little, a well known face in Northern Ireland for his work
as a journalist with Ulster Television over the last 20 or so years.
The play opens with the Belfast riots of 1969 as Gerry Courtney awaits the birth of
his first child. The action soon moves on to the aftermath of those events,
with the advent of internment and the incarceration of the three characters in
the same wing of Long Kesh.
Fireball, whose presence is felt from the opening lines, is a hospital porter at the
Royal, where Gerry's missus is having their child. He is the kind of character
who has a great ability to completely blot out what is going on around him.
His innate ability to live in a fantasy world goes hand in hand with his enthusiasm
for his favourite sport - darts. He constantly rabbits on about darts, much to
the annoyance of big Gerry (Ivan Little) who can't stand darts.
Indeed, the three lads were scooped in a pub where Fireball had gone to organise a
darts match and the other two were going to enquire about joining the IRA.
The play is interspersed with the music of the time, and of course, Gerry does a
great Mick Jagger impersonation to the sound of '(I Can't Get No)
Satisfaction'. Other well known songs of the era are also featured, and the
passage of time is very cleverly put across.
The third character, Felix, played by Alan McKee, bursts onto the set on several
occasions, declaring that the 'balloon is up'. Internment, the hunger strikes
and other momentous events are all greeted with this time-honoured phrase.
Over and above the originality of the script, and the way Lynch attempts to get
across the feeling of what it was like to be in the thick of it in the 70s and
80s particularly, credit must be given to McKee and Grimes.
Both of them play a multitude of characters, male and female. These characters go a
long way toward painting an authentic picture of life in 70s and 80s Belfast.
The action goes right up to the ceasefires, the visit of Clinton and the various
shenanigans of the Assembly over the last number of years. While not attempting
to make any overtly political points, Lynch's play is as much a sociological
observation of how the Troubles affected people's thinking, as anything else.
The approach taken perfectly shows the diversity in how different individuals
dealt with the entire situation.
Fireball, for example, would probably still have been obsessed by darts if he had lived in Saigon in the early 70's, and not Belfast. And Lynches ability to get the
blackest of black humour from a difficult situation is once more strengthened
by this, his latest production.
It was a sell-out at last year's Cathedral Arts Festival in Belfast and it's
two-week run in the Grand Opera House has also drawn full houses virtually
every night. This black comedy is well worth seeing, if it comes your way, make
no mistake about it, your understanding of working class Belfast culture will
be all the richer for the experience.
A number of reviews of plays, films, etc.
are available on our sitemap.
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