Reviews

Here is a considerably revised version of Declan Greene’s 2009 play, Home Economics.  Now the play features just three pieces (sketches?).  Filipe Filihia’s set is all gauze and glittering silver curtains – a shimmering, glitzy, show biz look for the very black humour of the show overall.  All three pieces feature food of a sort (candy bars, sausage rolls, tomato sauce, wine, restaurant food that never arrives, and flour - with one character a high school home economics teacher).

This funny comedy tells the story of the legendary day in 1978 when Munster, an Irish amateur football side, beat the mighty New Zealand All Blacks, undisputed kings of Rugby, 12-0 in Limerick. The All Blacks were undefeated on the remainder of that tour, so this momentous day really shines through.

Never fear, you need to know precisely nothing about the arcane rules and regulations of the game to enjoy this tumultuous, breath-taking recounting of Munster’s victory. It is great fun and really gets the audience buzzing.

A female toilet in a nightclub is the unassuming setting of this powerful play. Rosie, played by Janet Anderson (she/her), finds herself trapped in the toilet and is surrounded by menacing thumps on the walls and door. The presence of trans women in this social space has become not only contentious but also dangerous. The terrible harm of the threat of physical or psychological harm as a result of an everyday act is forcefully portrayed in this show. Overflow provides a strong and emphatic voice to the trans community.

This body at work belongs to Frankie van Kan: among other things, a dancer (table, lap, pole), stripper, sex-worker, and masseuse.  All work that needs and uses her body.  To demystify that body, Frankie begins her show by stripping off a tracksuit, down to nothing but a bra and G-string.  Then, to get any prurience, titillation, ‘mystery’ and even eroticism out of the way, the G-string comes off too and Frankie openly displays her pudenda (‘labia’ as she puts it – or sometimes ‘puss’) in a variety of faux provocative poses f