Theatre Review: The Weir at The Harold Pinter Theatre
On a recent trip to London, I was lucky enough to catch The Weir at The Harold Pinter Theatre, written and directed by Conor McPherson and starring Brendan Gleeson.
Originally produced in 1997, The Weir takes place entirely within a rural Irish pub, in which four friends (Jack, Brendan, Jimmy, and Finbar) tell local stories and show off to the mysterious young woman (Valerie) who has just moved to the village.
Firstly, the Harold Pinter Theatre itself is a lovely venue. For an old London theatre, I was very pleasantly surprised by the amount of leg room down the stalls where I was sat. It is conveniently located a five-minute walk from the Leicester Square underground station and though it is a little tucked away compared to the larger venues, I had no trouble finding it. My only minor complaint is that the bar was already out of Guinness, and while I’m not normally a Guinness drinker it felt fitting to have a very Irish pint for a very Irish play. It is playing here until the 6th December 2025 following its initial run in Dublin.
Now, the play itself.
I have to confess to being a little star-struck for the first few minutes. Gleeson is just as much of a commanding presence on stage as he is on screen, and Jack as a character demands a broad range. He jokes and banters with the other men but there’s a sadness to him, for reasons I will elaborate further on.
The rest of the cast were brilliant and at no point overshadowed. Owen McDonnell was Brendan, the friendly pub landlord dreading the annual migration of German holidaymakers. Jim (Seán McGinley) is a handyman caring for his ailing mother. Tom Vaughan-Lawlor played Finbar, a local boy done good. Finally, Valerie (Kate Phillips) has just moved in from the city, nice enough but reserved in the face of the blokey enthusiasm and peacocking.
I bought my ticket expecting a creepy Halloween show, in the vein of the Woman in Black or Ghost Stories, and while the tales were suitably chilling, what has stuck with me is the humour. There were laugh-out-loud moments all the way through, as the lads banter and insult each other as only best friends can. It helps that the script was so natural, I felt as though I could have met them at my local. Jim especially reminded me of a gentleman who used to be a regular at my village pub, who once spent an entire afternoon telling every other individual there about his new lawnmower.
There is however, a thread of sadness woven through. The stories told by our characters are a mix of traditional Irish fairy tales and their own encounters with ghosts. The theme running through is one of loss. As the men, excluding Finbar, reflect on their history, one gets the sense that the world is leaving them behind. I may be extra sensitive to this as I grew up in the sticks in Wales, but the countryside is slow to modernise and I know well many people who feel lost in the modern world. Paraphrasing Jack near the end of the play, he realises that Dublin in fact is not very far away from their little village, but it might as well be the other side of the world.
But the world is catching up and swallowing them, even Valerie, who has retreated from Dublin in search of peace and quiet. They all tell stories of people, places, and a world long gone, and what has been lost can never be found except through the retelling of the half-remembered.
By the time this review is published The Weir may well have finished its run, but if it is ever revived, or someone play it local to you, I highly recommend checking it out. I was drawn in by the star power, but the story will stay with me.
Review by Dai Baddley
