REVIEW: To Have To Shoot Irishmen, Omnibus Theatre ✭✭✭✭

Mark Ludmon reviews Almanac Arts’ new touring show To Have To Shoot Irishmen, currently at the Omnibus Theatre in Clapham

Elinor Lawless (Hanna) and the cast of To Have To Shoot Irishmen. To Have To Shoot Irishmen

Omnibus Theatre Clapham, London, and touring

Four stars

One of the most controversial atrocities of the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland has become the inspiration for a powerful new show by musician Lizzie Nunnery. Weaving together drama and song, To Have To Shoot Irishmen focuses on Frank Sheehy Skeffington, a writer and activist who was arrested while walking the streets of Dublin stopping looters and calling for peace as his republican friends took up arms against British rule. Although he was never charged, he was summarily and mistakenly executed under the orders of a rogue British captain, John Bowen-Colthurst.

Gerard Kearns (Frank) and Robbie O'Neill (William) in To Have To Shoot Irishmen.

In a fragmentary narrative that flits back and forth, we see the impact of the events on Frank’s wife Hanna - who was herself a well-known suffragette and champion of Irish independence - as well as its effect on a young Irish soldier, William Dobbin, who guards Frank in prison, and Irish-born British officer Sir Francis Vane who seeks to expose the war crime that has taken place on his watch.

With its broken furniture and severed girders, the set designed by Rachael Rooney is as fragmented as the narrative, reflecting the physical, political and psychological turmoil that has taken place. The scenery provides percussive surfaces for the four-strong cast who add emotional power to the show through evocative folk music, accompanying each other on the piano and mandolin. Wistful and angry, the songs by Nunnery and Vidar Norheim add a dark beauty to the production.

Russell Richardson (Vane) and Elinor Lawless (Hanna) in To Have To Shoot Irishmen

With a heart-wrenching singing voice, Elinor Lawless is a tightly wound-up mass of rage and loss as the grieving Hanna while Gerard Kearns brings an idealistic charm to Frank, stoic in the face of his baffling arrest. Russell Richardson is indignantly English as Vane who, despite his clipped tones, feels a loyalty to his native Ireland that is at odds with his service to the British government. Robbie O’Neill stands out as 18-year-old Dobbin who finds himself confused and devastated by the meaningless murder of a fellow Irishman he has grown to respect.

Tautly directed by Gemma Kerr for Almanac Arts, To Have To Shoot Irishmen throws a light on four lives affected by the Irish Troubles - all based on real-life people. It is an intense and sombre show, lifted by songs that suggest hope stays strong amid the death and destruction.

Running to October 20, 2018, and then on tour to Everyman Theatre in Liverpool, the Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury, Theatre Severn in Shrewsbury, Mumford Theatre in Cambridge and The Arts Centre at Edge Hill University, Ormskirk.

BOOK NOW FOR TO HAVE TO SHOOT IRISHMEN

Photos: Mike Massaro