Theatre Review: Here Comes The Night – Lyric Theatre

It’s 1966 in Belfast and the Catholic Gallaghers live in a mostly Protestant area. Normally there’s not much trouble, but as rumours circulate of a revolutionary writer in the area, the heavily pregnant Mary Gallagher is becoming increasingly uneasy. Vincent though? He doesn’t care as much, sure he has his revolutionary new novel  to concentrate on.

Dean, the fun-loving Protestant postman fancies Mary’s sister Jenny, and although they live in a mixed area, they still have to keep their affair under wraps. It may be the swinging sixties, but underneath the easy-going freedoms of this time, the first rumblings of the Troubles can be felt.

Fast forward to 2016 and we revisit the same house, Jim and Marta have just moved in and due to Marta’s Polish heritage they just want to fade into the background, but soon come to realise that that is easier said than done.

The cast play a blinder in Rosemary Jenkinson’s Here Comes The Night (her first play on the Lyric Theatre’s man stage), with the four actors playing eight parts. Seeing the transition between 1966 and 2016 is a really nice idea that also lets you see the versatility of the cast and gives you an idea of how times have changed (for some). For me though, Kerri Quinn in the roles of both typical Belfast mammy and bolshy Culture Minister Donna Ni Duineachair is the star of the show. Every little nuance of each character is spot on, and her performance of Donna undoubtedly got the biggest laughs of the night.

Jenkinson says:

“When I was writing about my fictional minister of Culture, Arts and Leisure, I was only too aware that the real one hardly ever comes to a show. In Spite of governments cuts, theatre is still being made but, in order to guarantee audiences, it’s increasingly difficult to put on edgy and adventurous works.”

Aside from the cast, the set design is spot on too, with peeling wallpaper in the old house and bright airy spaces in the second, and the direction by Jimmy Fay, is (as always) superb. But it’s the music that really makes this show a nostalgic and fitting tribute to the sixties.

In this year, the centenary of the Easter Rising, it’s interesting to see the difference between Belfast at the fiftieth anniversary and again, in the modern day and everything from the set design to the music reflect these differences. It seems to me that theatre is the only place that we can be truly honest about both our past and future here in Northern Ireland, and Here Comes The Night does a phenomenal job of portraying a moving, heartfelt and hilarious take on both the old and the new.

Here Comes The Night runs at Belfast’s Lyric Theatre until 14th May. For more information and to book tickets, click here.