"IT IS a cracking month for Irish theatre in London," writes Sarah Hemming in The Financial Times, and both Passion Machine's Buddleia and Druid's The Beauty Queen of Leenane have received superb reviews in the British press.
Hemming describes Buddleia, Paul Mercier's vision of capitalism ravaged Dublin through the key hole of tenement life, which is running at the Donmar Warehouse, as "an ambitious, enthralling piece that fizzes with desperation" and adds that "its deliberate avoidance of dramatic conventions admirably suits the splintered world it portrays."
Druid can't be happy with how little prominence they have received in the reviews of The Beauty Queen of Leenane: "The latest in the Royal Court's amazing run of exciting discoveries is Martin Mc Donagh, yet another fine Irish playwright," writes Charles Spencer in the Daily Telegraph. In the Sunday Times, John Peter describes the play as "one of the most exhilarating debuts in years" and adds "the atmosphere between them (the old Ma and her frustrated, spinster daughter) is like a cross between Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and Beckett's Endgame." Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, John Gross describes the performances of Marie Mullen, Anna Manahan, Brian F. O'Byrne and Tom Murphy, under Garry Hynes's direction, as "magnificent".
