A three week season of short lunchtime plays has opened at the Peacock Theatre with Respond, by Noel MacAoidh. It is a 30 minute comedy or farce which opens with a blast of musical noise as Gill twitches and rocks in his jumbled flat. He is soon joined by his mate Vinnie, who has a problem.
Gill is a placid slob who writes opaque signs on pieces of cardboard and likes to keep out of trouble. Vinnie has fallen foul of some terrifying tough, appropriately named Hunter, who is coming for him. He plots and plans against this and tries to secure Gill's unwilling aid with bribe and threat.
Nothing more really happens in a scenario which is slight in content but strong on dialogue and character sketching. The two boyos interact amusingly, each with a good line in quirky thought and its expression in hip, slightly surreal jargon. As enacted by Marc O'Shea and Tony Flynn, they are convincing and funny.
Kathy McArdle's direction shepherds matters briskly along to the cessation - it all stops rather than ends - with the aid of Karen Weaver's appropriately ramshackle set.
