The Cripple of Inishmaan - Noel Coward Theatre

Michael Grandage’s 2013 season at the Noel Coward Theatre is using celebrity actors and the promise of cheap tickets to draw new crowds to the West End. The headline talent for the current show, The Cripple of Inishmaan, is Oscar-nominated playwright Michael McDonagh. Oh, and Daniel Radcliffe. Radcliffe seems determined to break away from the wizard stereotype in his theatrical appearances, meaning that his dedicated younger fans are exposed to some fairly inappropriate scenes. In his London stage debut Equus, it was nudity; here it is McDonagh’s industrial Irish language, which will be instantly familiar to fans of his films In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths. If the play represents a gamble for both Grandage and Radcliffe, then it seems to be paying off. The director says that the majority of discounted seats have gone tofirst-time theatregoers as intended, and the applause that greets the end of each scene suggests they are enjoying the experience. 

I’m a little dubious about the use of big names to shift theatre tickets, but happily Radcliffe’s performance is humble and hardworking. He’s not the best actor on the stage, but neither is he a weak link. There’s plenty of time when he is offstage altogether, so the script remains the focus, as it should be. This is the first major London revival of The Cripple of Inishmaan since its original run at the National in 1997. Intended as the first part of a trilogy set in the islands off the coast of County Galway, it was followed by The Lieutenant of Inishmore in 2007, but the third play in the sequence has never been published or produced. 

Although the action is eventually revealed to be taking place in 1933, the set design and early action has a timeless quality, alternating between a village store stocked almost entirely with tinned peas, a harbour, and the home of Johnnypatteenmike, the local gossip. The rituals of daily life are quickly established: a young boy, Bartley, comes into the store to buy sweets, Johnnypatteenmike passes through to barter his three pieces of news for eggs (or, more often, peas). The two women who run the store fret over Cripple Billy, who spends his time reading books or staring at cows. This routine is disrupted by a rare piece of genuine interest from Johnnypatteenmike – the news that an American film crew will soon be arriving in nearby Inishmore to make a film. Two youngsters, Cripple Billy and Bartley’s fiery sister Helen, decide to seize the day and sail to the neighbouring island to secure their future in Hollywood. 

Helen and Cripple Billy both rail against the limitations of growing up on an island which is stuck in the past, and fight against it in their own ways. Billy reads, and uses his learning to outwit the characters around him, while Helen is notoriously fierce and quick to chuck eggs at anything and anyone who displeases her, even the local priest. Their attempts to make something of themselves provide much of the dramatic impetus of the play, but there are plenty of memorable subplots running in tandem; Johnnypatteenmike’s attempts to drown his alcoholic mother with drink, Auntie Katie’s nervous breakdown (manifested when she begins talking to rocks), and most crucially, the mystery of why Billy’s parents killed themselves. 

This production handles the subtle mood shifts of McDonagh’s script expertly. Beginning as a sort of pastoral, Father Ted-like parody of picturesque Irish poverty, the action is gradually infused with bitterness, rancour and a sense of mounting uncertainty. Cripple Billy proves himself to be an unreliable narrator, becoming less and less credible the further he gets from home, whilst the denouement provokes gasps of surprise from the audience. Each cast member is shown as a rounded character, with flaws and virtues in equal measure, giving the play a great sense of humanity. Much humour is drawn from mocking Ireland itself (a running joke states that ‘Ireland can’t be so bad if dentists / French folk / coloured fellas want to live here’), and the institutions which run it (‘If God went touching my arse in choir practice, I’d peg eggs at that fecker too’). 

Radcliffe is solid as Cripple Billy, an unglamorous, physically demanding role, and his moodswings in the final scene are impressive. His fans stick with the show, and he receives rapturous applause at the curtain. Two of the supporting cast steal the day though. Sarah Greene, as Helen, is angry, vulnerable and flirtatious, giving her scenes a sense of splenetic energy, while June Watson as the bed-ridden alcoholic Mammy is a sharp-tongued voice of reason. Elsewhere, Pat Shortt as the local braggard Johnnypatteenmike is suitably blustering, but also provides some unexpected emotional depth late on. The delivery throughout is sharp, and the entire cast shows excellent comic timing. The production provides the heartening revelation that, with the right script and production, you can have a headline star and a great ensemble performance at the same time.

The Cripple of Inishmaan runs at the Noel Coward Theatre until August 31.