Porridge Boy, Greenwich Theatre Review
Ryan Roy (Joey) and Luke Coughlan (Dan) in Porridge Boy at Greenwich Theatre
Written by Penny for Theatre and Tonic.
Disclaimer: Tickets were gifted in return for an honest review. All views are my own.
Porridge Boy is a new musical by Irish singer-songwriter Brendan Shelly. Partly drawing on his personal experiences, it’s set in Ireland in 1979. While the country is feeling positive about its future, the focus is on one family who are struggling to deal with a crushing grief.
As well as being the writer, this is Shelly’s directorial debut, working alongside Coco Mbassi to bring his work to the stage.
The set is a rather bleak, open-plan house decorated in the appropriate late 70s style. A three piece band is on stage with the actors.
The play is written as a kitchen sink drama. We are looking at the everyday life of a family still mourning the loss of their father. Mam is struggling with a young baby and the two sons are trying to cope with the expectation that they need to step up to fill the “man of the house” role. Older brother Dan is rebelling, falling in with the wrong crowd, and younger Joey is leaning on his new friend Jason and embracing new ideas that don’t necessarily sit well with his more traditional family. Mam has started a relationship with her husband’s best friend, a controlling Garda with a violent temper.
The cast do the best they can with what is rather a weak script, one that unfortunately isn’t improved by the show’s original songs. They are mostly sung by family members mourning their loss but don’t do much to move the plot along or add any depth to the characters. At times the singing is rather overwhelmed by the music with poor sound balance.
As the boys, Luke Coughlan and Ryan Roy do well to show the rebellion, frustration and resignation of their family life. Playing the mother, Kathryn Rutherford is a stand-out performer – she gets the hopelessness and despair of her character over well, clearly well beyond the end of her tether. There is some light relief from Riain Cash, playing younger brother Joey’s friend Jason, and in the role of Dan’s girlfriend Donna, Anna Buttery gives us some hope of a respite from the misery with her dreams of moving away to start a new life in England.
There’s some good interaction between Buttery and Roy as Donna gives Joey a little of the support that he’s not getting from his mother. The gulf between the adults and teenage characters was portrayed well, with the older couple almost in a freeze when the teens were singing about their struggles, there’s no communication or understanding between them.
Unfortunately, despite a hard working cast, Porridge Boy still needs some development and would have perhaps fared better in the theatre’s smaller Studio space with a more intimate atmosphere to draw us into the drama. The show is currently too long and the songs have rather banal lyrics and forgettable melodies that don’t add anything to the production. It’s dealing with an important subject that has the potential to really resonate with audiences and there are some glimpses of engaging and empathetic characters and some interesting ideas in both the writing and staging.
☆ ☆