Saturday 28th April 2012
I took my seat for the final subscription date of 2011-12 at Edinburgh’s Royal Lyceum Theatre on Thursday night, in some degree of nervousness. There had been a lot of hype over the violent nature of Martin McDonagh’s play, the Lieutenant of Inishmore, which is about the disintegration of terrorist groups in Ireland. However, on the positive side, folk were saying, it’s very funny.
Well, there’s plenty of violence, both mindless and coldly calculating, to chill the blood and give the lie to any romantic idea of the fight for ‘freedom’. ‘Freedom’ is different things to different people and, in this play, cats. Not all ‘freedoms’ are respectable or justifiable. As for the humour, my husband, and lots of other audience members found it funny, but I was struggling to laugh. It’s not my kind of humour. I wonder if I ever get satire.
For those of you who do, the run continues until 12/05/12.
It does feature a wonderful set – really, really wonderful.