Reviews

Irish Timeswriters review recent events

This Is What We Sang

Belfast Synagogue, Somerton Road

Gavin Kostick’s new site-specific play for Kabosh has been more than two years in the making – and it shows. It is a lovingly, painstakingly researched piece, based on interviews with members of the Belfast Hebrew community, some still resident in the North, others who have moved across the water.

It is currently taking pride of place in the community’s wonderfully titled “Jews Schmooze” arts initiative.

Kostick’s not insubstantial task was to craft a play, which would narrate a Jewish family’s experience since its first arrival in Belfast towards the end of the 19th century. His chosen format is four interlocking monologues from characters whose lives span four generations, two continents and thousands of miles.

In 1895, Lev (Lalor Roddy) and his brother Saul (Alan Burke) left their shtetl in Latvia and, by a circuitous route, landed in a place called Belfast. Saul’s gift was for singing – as witnessed by Burke’s sweet vocal contribution – Lev’s for making money and charming women out of the trees.

As a 40-year-old successful businessman, he goes to Leeds to meet his wife Hannah (Laura Hughes), whose sister ends up marrying Saul, the true love of Hannah’s life.

It is the somewhat unenviable task of their sparky spinster daughter Siss (Jo Donnelly) to take us on a whistle-stop history tour of the past 60 years, while her great nephew Bill (Paul Kennedy), a casualty of the Lehman Brothers crash, brings us bang up to date with the New York Jewish experience.

In the hands of these four superb actors, under Paula McFetridge’s gentle direction, the skeletons come tumbling out of the closet with pin-sharp timing and articulation, their stories and emotions ricocheting around the prayer-soaked walls of this atmospheric building.

Ends tomorrow.

JANE COYLE

The Buzzcocks

The Academy, Dublin

SINÉAD GLEESON

When bands of old trot into town for gigs, it’s easy to assume that they’re riding the comeback pony. This mangy beast is usually laden down with nostalgia and band merchandise, urged on by the dangled carrot of cold hard cash. Not so The Buzzcocks, who never really went away.

In recent years, they’ve endured line-up changes and lukewarm critical success, but they’ve toured consistently and it shows in this performance. Tight as hell and louder than bombs, the setlist borrowed the Don’t Look Back idea from All Tomorrow’s Parties, where a band plays one of their albums in its entirety.

Never short on energy, Pete Shelley and Co gave us not one of their classic albums, but two.

Launching into Fast Cars, they barely paused for breath until they were halfway through their 1978 debut Another Music in a Different Kitchen. Guitarist Steve Diggle played his Rickenbacker vertically for I Don't Mind, while Shelley cranked up his already screeching amp.

At this kind of pace, you'd expect a short set, but there was another album – Love Bites– to come. The crowd was dominated by men of a certain vintage, a sea of balding pates nodding in unison, until Real Worldkicked off.

A handful of fans then found their moshing mojo and when the opening riff of their biggest hit, Ever Fallen in Love with Someone?, rang out, most of the crowd had a good-natured go at pogoing for old times' sake.

There wasn’t much chatting to the audience, but it was clear Shelley and Diggle were enjoying themselves. Part of the band’s energy comes from the presence of the younger band members, Tony Barber on bass and the frantic drumming of Danny Farrant.

Diggle suffered some guitar problems near the end, but he was back in time to embrace a female stage invader.

The Buzzcocks still have it. The fire in their collective bellies burns bright. Diggle ended the night with a rockstar-ish bout of mic stand throwing, but his older, wiser self was back out at the end, politely shaking hands with the front row.