The Tailor and Ansty

Published Thursday 10 July 2008 at 11:35 by Alistair Smith

The Tailor and Ansty - a story about a husband and wife living in rural early 20th century Ireland - forms part of a festival at the Old Red Lion celebrating the theatre of the Emerald Isle.

And, to be fair to the show, the only way it could have been more Irish would have been if a leprechaun had interrupted proceedings and started doing a Riverdance, while downing a pint of Guinness.

Whether this qualifies as theatre, however, is another matter entirely.

Adapted from a book which was apparently banned by the Irish Senate for indecency, the show amounts to an old man whittering on about nothing in particular, while his slightly simple wife occasionally blathers an interruption.

There’s a token set in the background, but nothing really happens, there is absolutely no drama and, frankly, this should never have been adapted for the stage.

The performances are as good as they can be given the material, but the staging is so static, the characters so mind-numbingly inconsequential and the whole thing so unremittingly twee, that by the end I was praying for the aforementioned leprechaun to come and stuff my eyes and ears with shamrock so I didn’t have to endure any more.

There is, I’m glad to report, one unintentionally comic moment in the first half of the show. The Tailor and Ansty are hilariously struggling to get to grips with a crossword (a newfangled invention which simple country folk just can’t understand).

“Dreary. Four letters, begins with ‘d’, ends with ‘l’,” he says. Confusion reigns. He doesn’t know the answer.

I did. And I have a feeling that the censorship board might have as well.

Dull. The word is dull.