The Stage

Radio Review

Published Wednesday 11 January 2006 at 11:05 by Moira Petty

In the early days of Irish nationalism, my great grandmother used to hide Republican soldiers in the family farmhouse, protecting them from certain death. As was made clear in a riveting Woman’s Hour Drama, Cooking For Michael Collins, the Black and Tans in twenties Ireland had orders to shoot if a known Republican hoved into view, hands in pockets, or with an apparent disinclination to obey orders.

The role of women in the Irish struggle was revealed in Jane Purcell’s drama about May ‘Pidgie’ Rigney, a hotel worker, who only became a patriot at 35, in 1917, drawn to Republican guarantees of equality to all citizens. Unlike the male rebels, who had been shot, she resolved not to throw away her life but work for the cause in an organised, pragmatic way. She joined the women’s division of the IRA, Cumman na mBan and after meeting Michael Collins, who rose to become leader of the IRA from 1918-21, she did everything from rustling up meals for him to a spot of gun-running.

We first meet Pidgie, played by Niamh Cusack, in her later years after returning home from exile in the US to die. Cusack had the aura of old age about her in those scenes without utilising ridiculous vocal effects. She then recounted her story to her niece, who had discovered a statement about her IRA involvement, which Pidgie had made in 1952 to Dublin’s Bureau of Military History. This document, as well as Pidgie’s letters, formed the factual basis for Purcell’s drama.

With Cusack’s real-life sister Sorcha playing her character’s sister and her actual husband, Finbar Lynch, as Collins, it was a family affair but without the self-indulgence that implies. Niamh shone as the resourceful Pidgie, who hid escaping IRA soldiers’ guns in the cabbage patch and used her ingenuity to outwit the British soldiers who raided her home. There were even moments of humour - early on Collins naively tried to disguise himself by wearing a moustache. There was pathos, too, at the death of Pidgie’s hopes for the women’s cause after Collins was assassinated. The series was fascinating.

Most rebels mellow with time but Liz Kuti’s rumbustious drama, Mr Fielding’s Scandal Shop, told the shocking story of how author Henry Fielding was bought off by the establishment. The play’s title was also the more familiar name for the Little Theatre, Haymarket, where Fielding, now better remembered for novels like Tom Jones and Joseph Andrews, staged satires poking fun at Walpole’s government.

Richard McCabe had the lead role as the writer, at first fired up and then so deflated by the financial demands of his household that he colluded in passing a bill, which required all theatres, save the tamer establishments of Covent Garden and Drury Lane, to be closed down.

Lizzie McInnerny was powerful as the lesbian actress, who eloquently begged for mercy for her lover, who had infringed the Licensing Act of 1737 and come up against Fielding, by then a magistrate. Again, this was a stirring dramatisation of factual events and a slice of theatrical history.

Rebecca Papworth’s Miscreant Mothers starred Sarah Smart and Denise Black in a poignant, rather beautiful drama about a mother who had stolen another’s child. Neither was as innocent nor as guilty as they semed. Directed by Janet Hampson, it was part tabloid headline mill, part stream of consciousness.

For those alienated by the emphasis on enjoyment over the festive season, Radio 3 had the answer. Guest + Host = Ghost pitted sociability against isolation. Scriptwriter Peter Blegvad pursued his own thoughts from a flotation tank, while rock musician Nick Cave read a well-chosen selection of soundbites from Stevie Smith to Max Beerbohm. The two men’s voices meshed poetically in this subversive spin on enforced jollity. Ironically, it put me in the mood for a party. Cheers!

DETAILS

Cooking for Michael Collins - R4 from Monday January 9

Mr Fielding’s Scandal Shop - R3, Sunday December 25

Miscreant Mothers - R3, Thursday January 5

Guest + Host = Ghost - R3, Saturday December 31