A NEW COMEDY by Tom O Brien, presented by the talented Iomha Ildanach company, has opened at The Crypt in Dublin Castle. Hungry For Love is an over solemn title for a near farce of modern city manners in which some denizens of flat land find themselves in tangled situations complicated by sex more than sentiment.
Kath is going off her guy, a drummer named Louis, while her co tenant, Miriam, is beginning to fancy him. A new flatmate, Babs, is in therapy after a broken relationship of some years' duration. Upstairs is Tomas, Miriam's medical student brother and something of a scavenger; below is Martin, a randy garda devoted to his brand of public service.
These are hardly serious character studies of any depth and the play is at its most entertaining when it abandons all pretensions to anything but the generation of laughter. Oddly - or perhaps not - the women characters are the more convincing, especially Amelia Crowley's Kath, and the men the funnier, notably Niall O Sioradain's crass Martin.
It is all very slight, but consistently amusing and with moments of real hilarity. John O'Brien's direction adds pace to the mixture and the cast - completed by Evan Holton, Ashley Buckle, Brian McGuinness and Conor Morrissey - groove very nicely.
More pizza than souffle, but still tasty.
