I took my sister to the last Saturday matinee (luckily I got two £30 front row seats, or I couldn't have afforded it), and she thought it was one of the best things she'd ever seen, with 3 brilliant funny performances working perfectly off each other.
I'd agree this is one of the funniest shows (these type of productions do get funnier, as a rule, the later you go, as the actors tend to keep honing the laughs as the show goes on, even after press night). And this show is perfectly cast in every role.
It's also so meaningful, as well, despite being nowhere near as shocking as "Cyprus Avenue," in my opinion.
Think David Mamet, in his prime, written by someone who understands identities, especially Northern Irish identities, better than anyone.
This really deserves a transfer.
Some spoilers follow. . .
I love this as a study of identity, especially in how stable or unstable identity can be.
Having the most stable, and the most powerful identity, belong to the seemingly least powerful person, is part of the genius of the piece, I feel: a female writer able to stand her own against a male director and a male acting superstar.
Casting Louisa Harland was a coup for this, as her Derry Girls "identity" was so warm, cheery and benign that you can't fathom the extent of the iron self-confidence and rock-like will of this character. Harland is smiley and ingratiating on the outside, but her imperturbable poise, her utter stage calm, is like an iceberg, ever suggesting that the men's titanic egos would be better off not colliding with her. And because of that, we are ever eager to see such a collision lol!
Harrelson's superstar actor ostensibly has the most power, but his character is the least self-knowing, the least stable, the most desperate for approbation, and the most likely to act out in pathetic preening power displays to assert the status that he obviously doesn't feel deep down. Harrelson clearly has an astounding grasp of this sort of acting out, presumably having seen it plenty of times, and he plays it to a perfect level of comic exaggeration, which still remains within the (outer) bounds of believable behaviour.
And mediating between these two power poles (one powerful inside, the other powerful outside), is Andy Serkis's theatre director: devious and sly, obsequious, self-serving, hypocritical, calculating, people-pleasing, manipulative, and most sneakily, a jab by Ireland at the sort of right-on and liberal people who tend to go to straight plays at the theatre lol.
Serkis is SO good at smugness, so pleased with himself, so good at weasily slipping and sliding in the furtherance of manipulating the others, an incredible funny caricature, critique and stand-in for the audience. Serkis character's identity is like jelly, firm at the base but wobbling opportunistically at the top, sociopathically adapting himself to manipulate others. He's absolutely marvellous in the part.
Anyway, the rest has all been said in other's comments above.
I loved this to the tune of a full 5 stars, gasping, laughing, cringing, tensing with suspense, for the duration. A transfer would be welcome, if possible.
