Defender Of The Faith

Defender of the Faith plays like an IRA version of Reservoir Dogs; it follows a group of violent, overly suspicious people searching for a mole working for ‘the enemy’. But whereas Tarantino’s film focused on the violence, Stuart Carolan's play focuses more on the characters and their reactions to the situation.

That this was Carolan’s first play is clearly apparent. On the positive, it shows the potential he has as a theatrical voice; it contains a few electric scenes between interesting characters and some believable dialogue that manages to sound both poetic and realistic.

Unfortunately, many ‘first-timer’ mistakes are made and for everything the playwright gets right there is at least one thing he gets wrong. The play has an excellent premise and promises to be surprising but quickly falls into a cesspool of clichés and predictability.

What does make this a worthwhile production are the performances, all of which are outstanding. While there is a cast of six, it really is a four-hander. The ever-excellent Tam Dean Burn is only onstage for a short, needless scene and Callum Munro and Jan Plazalski share the role of Danny, a character whose main function is mere comic relief for the opening and closing moments.

However, all four leads - Lewis Howden as patriarch Joe, Martin McCormick as son Thomas, Martin McCardie as IRA investigator JJ and Laurie Ventry as farmhand Barney - are excellent, managing to play off of each other well and to pass off the flawed script as believable. Even the most cliché-ridden lines and exchanges have a sense of purpose, and it is easy to care about characters that could be seen as deplorable.

Director Andy Arnold has again created a well-crafted production. The pacing never lets up and dramatic tension is balanced by comedic touches. It also has a good design concept, with a claustrophobic living room cluttered with years of harsh life that is surrounded by the beautiful yet foreboding countryside.

Defender of the Faith is filled with good ideas and has strong performances. But while the production is well-executed, there is no getting around the weak script, which starts promisingly but quickly becomes formulaic.