Growing pains

It must be about 10 years since I saw the first production of Shades of the Jellywoman, an autobiographical one-woman show by Jean Costello, who collaborated with Peter Sheridan on the script. Clearly a good wine, the play has grown in maturity and flavour since then, and is now a personal record of considerable depth and obvious authenticity.

Set in Dublin's north inner city in the 1950s, the story is one of a girl growing up in a very poor family and being farmed out to her grandparents. One of the reasons for her transfer to an equally poor household was that her grandfather, half mad from the Somme, had taken to beating his wife with brutality, and the girl might prove a buffer. She did in several ways, including taking some of the blows.

The journey ends, or is suspended, with the death of her grandparents while she is still in her teens, and it is a tribute to play and performer that I felt a sense of disappointment at the abrupt ending, wanting more. Jean Costello comes across as a completely natural performer, which is usually the reward of thorough professionalism. Word-perfect for some two hours, she is generous with herself and her story in this serious recreation of an archetypal past.

Continues until July 27th. To book, phone: 01-6770643.