Carol Ann Duffy's set of poems The World's Wife has been given the dramatic treatment in this production by Inis Theatre Company. Together Mrs Midas, Mrs Freud, Mrs Kong (et al) give us humour, bitterness and occasional drumbanging in this pleasant, if patchy, hour of theatre.
This isn't your usual feminist reclaiming of overlooked historical figures. Duffy's characters are decidedly unromantic, showing us the flipside to familiar tales in a way that says more about women today, than of the past.
David Horan directs with a lively touch, readily embracing the anachronistic tone - Salome emerging with a hangover to the strains of Oops, I did it Again was one such moment. Iseult Golden and Carmel Stephens both give engagingly committed performances. Yet one senses that the urge to push the performances is at times a little at odds with the ironic restraint of the poems themselves and that both acting and directing could have benefited from greater economy and precision.
Finishes tomorrow. To book phone 01-6710073.