Love And Fury – The Passion Of Jonathan Swift

Scoil Eimhín Naofa, Monasterevin, Co Kildare Jul 22 8pm 10 087-1623700; King House, Boyle, Co Roscommon. Jul 23 7.30pm 5 071-9663085; Market Place Theatre, Armagh Jul 26 8pm £10 048-37521821

In the wake of a financial crisis with eerie similarities to our own, Jonathan Swift sat down to write A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland From Being a Burden on Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick. In short, he said, they should be sold as food to rich people. What was going through the great satirist, humanist and cleric's mind? And is it coincidental that the man who transmuted his social outrage into biting satire should have ended his career in stunted service as Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, and his life in chronic ill-health and mental disorder?

Debuted at last year's Absolut Fringe for Fishamble's Show in a Bag season, Love and Fury – The Passion of Jonathan Swift, now directed by Paul Hayes for Catastrophe, attempts to thread the man through his narratives. David Heap plays Swift, mourning the love of his life through poetry, prayer and elegy, while railing against bankers, society and even humanity. Set in the 1720s, it also allows Swift to tie together the strands of his most famous achievement, of travels, adventures, and problems – like our own – both giant and small. However things ended for Swift, the play knows he always had an imaginative solution.

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