The Walworth Farce

Take a classic Irish play, perhaps by Synge or O'Casey. Ask Dario Fo to turn it into one of his farces of outrageous behaviour. Ask Brian Friel to contribute a monologue broken between three people. Get Harold Pinter to menace up the second half. Finally get Samuel Beckett to provide a profoundly disturbing and bleak final five minutes.

Or, if you're Enda Walsh, just write The Walworth Farce and get Druid to deliver one of the funniest, most devastating plays to be seen anywhere this year.

Three men in a messy flat prepare. The oldest one is doing warm-up exercises. One of the younger ones is putting on a dress, the other is unpacking shopping and looking horrified at a salami. Then they start acting out the day of a funeral in broad Irish accents and even broader movements and gestures. Where are they? What's going on?

Where soon becomes clear: the Walworth Road in South London. The what slowly seems to emerge, the re-enactment of events in Ireland. This is a play though that reveals its secrets slowly and then, maybe, not wholly.

It's the arrival of a check-out girl from the local supermarket that triggers the final flow of events that will make this a day unlike any other and lead the audience through a sequence that jolts them from laughter to fear to horror and finally to deep pity.

Denis Conway gives a roaringly comic performance as the wildly overacting father, but beneath that there's an equally strong but very different performance going on as well. He's stunningly matched by Tadhg Murphey as poor, sweet Sean who innocently brings disaster by picking up the wrong shopping bag. Garrett Lombard is equally good as Blake, whose female roles are sometimes played just by his wigs but for whom reality is straining to break through. Natalie Best has the unenviable task of simply being ordinary amid the chaos,which she does very well, you really do care for poor Hayley.

Mikel Murfi's direction expertly combines the theatre of the absurd with the reality of damaged lives. This is an unforgettable production of a richly rewarding, wonderfully written play. One of the very best productions I've seen all year.