Dancing at Lughnasa
- Ashley Hayward
- 10 minutes ago
- 3 min read
Dancing at Lughnasa by Brian Friel at The Loft Theatre, from Wednesday 3 December to Saturday 13 December 2025.
Review by Ashley Hayward
Set in rural Ireland in the 1930’s this powerful and moving play by Brian Friel is semi- autobiographical as the story teller, ‘Michael’, recalls events when he was 7 years old and living with his unmarried mother and her four sisters during a time of immense political, social and economic change.
The five actors playing the sisters manage to beautifully portray their love and support for each other as well as the frictions between them as their way of life increasingly comes under threat.
The eldest sister Kate, nicely played by Lorna Middleton, is a very devote Catholic school teacher and the major breadwinner of the family. Maggie (Ruth Herd) is the chief homemaker. She is mischievous, cheeky, humorous and likeable (and also enjoys smoking woodbines!)
Agnes (Rosie Pankhurst) and Rose (Tina Shinkwin) both manage to bring in some income by knitting gloves. Rose has a learning disability and Agnes is very protective of her.
Chris (Leonie Slater) is the youngest of the sisters and Michael’s mother. She appears to be besotted by Michael’s father Gerry. Ted McGowan gives an impressive performance as the extremely charming but very unreliable Gerry. He promises much but seldom delivers!
The girls also have a brother, Father Jack, who has come back from Africa after 25 years’ service as a Catholic Chaplain and a missionary working in a leper colony. Phil Reynolds convincingly plays the priest who had caught malaria on his travels and has returned in poor physical health and appears to be in the early stages of dementia.
All the action takes place in late summer, the time of the Celtic harvest festival of Lughnasa and we witness the family coming to terms with the reality that their way of life will need to change and their hopes and dreams for the future are dashed.
We do not get to meet the 7 year old Michael but Christopher Stanford gives a very accomplished performance as the adult narrator and he movingly describes what eventually happened to the family members. The family is able to get some joy from a recently obtained but rather temperamental wireless and perform some very nicely choreographed traditional Irish dancing to its music
Although it is sad to witness the breaking up of the family and hear about the tragic events awaiting some of them, the play is also funny and uplifting and makes you feel like joining in with the dancing.
Dancing in Lughnasa is unambiguously an ‘Irish play’ of the genre so beloved and always well performed by the Loft Theatre. The play beautifully conveys a conservative rural community where life is stagnating, youth fading fast and where the future holds little promise.
However it’s about much more than Ireland in 1936 and this is anything but a depressing play. It’s a celebration of the strength of family, the shared pleasures of sisterhood and the ability to knit joy out of unlikely materials. Above all it’s filled with the kind of music and dancing that grows naturally out of everyday life, even when the wireless won’t work! So that, even in loquacious Ireland, there are times that dancing speaks louder than words.
Friel is undoubtedly one of the major Irish playwrights and the Loft’s talented cast and crew certainly do justice to his play.
For tickets:https://lofttheatrecompany.com/
