Turn the light up on your stereotypical rural family, then turn it up again, until the wallpaper is fluorescent, the country 'n' Irish saccharine, and the bathroom not always reached when nature comes to call - you have Alan Titley's cast in his new play in Irish for Amharclann de hIde.
He has moulded his clay into a fine group of caricatures: the foul-mouthed pig of a pig farmer, the loudmouthed wife sheltering under a beehive hair-do, the sexually voracious daughter, the priesteen (the failure of the family), the uncle who got dropped in early childhood and the nancy boy of a teacher.
It's a great idea. The problem is he doesn't do enough with his figurines. Bairbre Ni Chaoimh's inspired direction moves them around Fiona Leech's impressively taste-free set like finger puppets but the script does not sustain the surrealism, the stylisation or the comedy.
Titley is poking fun both at the grasping rural culture of the EU handout and at urban impressions of this, creating his nightmare out of the divide.
The cast, including Barry Barnes as the farmer, Brid Mc Carthy as his wife, Donncha Crowley as the simple uncle and especially Lesley Conroy as the "abhar sagairt" play up a storm but they can't help the fact that the script makes a promise in the opening scenes which it fails to keep.
Runs until September 18th. To book phone 01-6082461
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