By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: ****1/2

WHEN?: Saturday 8 April, opens Tuesday 18 April runs through 27 May 2023 RUNTIME: 155 minutes (including a 20-minute interval)

Our narrator is actor Tom Vaughan-Lawlor who plays Michael, the unseen seven-year-old boy who is being raised by the Mundy sisters in County Donegal in 1936.

• Read on for reasons including how the cast includes 3 of Channel 4’s hit comedy Derry Girls

Lughnasa is the name given to the villagers’ harvest festival and Dancing was written in 1990 by Brian Friel (Translations, National Theatre) who died in 2015 and would have been the same age as Michael in the year Lughnasa is set.

It won both an Olivier and Tony for Best Play and director Josie Rourke (recently As You Like It @sohoplace and Lemons, Lemons, Lemons at the Harold Pinter) stages it here in a kitchen without walls opening out onto a lush garden at the bottom of a hill by an idyllic wood.

There’s a great deal of comedy in the text as we discover that the house is shared by 5 unmarried sisters looking after their uncle Jack who has returned recently from missionary work in Africa but is having problems with his memory.

The comedy is amplified by a brilliant turn by Siobhan McSweeney (The Alchemist, Barbican Theatre and Sister Michael from Channel 4’s Derry Girls) as sister Maggie who dreams of being on stage and even daubs her face with flour at 1 point and leads the cast in a joyous Irish dance which is very much the show’s highpoint and earns rapturous applause from this audience.

Rourke gets a great deal from her ensemble and there’s much that is unspoken but is conveyed beautifully by the sisters not least Maggie’s understanding of sister Agnes’ (Louisa Harland (Glass. Kill. Bluebeard. Imp, Royal Court and also Orla McCool from Channel 4’s Derry Girls ) feelings for Michael’s father.

This dysfunctional family faces the challenges of poverty and we share their sense of wonder at the arrival of a wireless they call ‘Marconi’ because that is the brand name it bears into their midst.

Ardal O’Hanlon (Channel 4’s Derry Girls  but also Father Ted) plays Father Jack and he transforms thanks to the love of his family and especially the stern medicine of eldest Kate played by Justine Mitchell who teaches at the local school and admonishes her sisters for their wish to rekindle their youth and return to the Lughnasa dance of which they all have such fond memories.

There’s a very moving moment when the impervious-seeming Kate confides in the empathic Maggie that she does not know exactly why but that she fears she may lose her job at the school and worries what her unemployment might mean for the rest of the family.

Elsewhere youngest sister Rose, Blaithin Mac Gabhann transforms before our very eyes losing wide-eyed innocence for sullen world weariness, as we learn that the glove knitting job she shares with Agnes is under threat from the arrival of factories driving down wages.

Narrator Vaughan-Lawlor gets to wander the stage commentating on the action and we learn that he was born out of wedlock and we meet his natural father Gerry played by Tom Riley who is unreliable, a failed salesman and with dreams of fighting in the Spanish Civil War in an attempt to find meaning in his life.

Ironically, although having a child outside of marriage is very much frowned upon at this time in Ireland, it’s a concept easily understood and accepted by Father Jack thanks to his time in Uganda.

We learn that while those in the Church may have disapproved about the ceremonies over which he presided in his beloved Uganda, they are not so far removed from the joy inspired by Maggie daubing her face with flour and inciting the family to dance to the Irish music brought to them by the wireless.

Elsewhere the Paganism of the villagers in the hills beyond the Mundy family home represents a perceived threat to them but again the similarities with the circumstances embraced by Father Jack in Africa show the benefits of travel and experience of different cultures in broadening the mind.

In other words while there doesn’t appear to be a great deal happening in Lughnasa it does contain pivotal events which will transform the lives of these beloved characters forever.

We shared the joy with the music brought to the Mundy house thanks to the wireless, loved the communcal dancing and revelled in the laugh-out-loud comedy that this brilliant evocation of complicated family life explored.

• Main picture via Facebook courtesy National Theatre Tickets
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