Brian Friel’s 1990 play set during harvest time at the village of Ballybeg somewhere in County Donegal, is intensely evocative of a world which has almost entirely disappeared. At the home of the five Mundy Sisters before the onset of the Second World War, there’s a daily battle to make ends meet whilst looking after the men in their lives — Uncle Jack (Ardal O’Hanlon) just returned from the leper colony in Ugandaand seven year old Michael Evans whose childhood memories recounted as an adult (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor) serve to narrate the piece.
Siobhán McSweeney (Maggie), Bláithín Mac Gabhann (Rose), Louisa Harland (Agnes), Justine Mitchell (Kate) & Alison Oliver (Chris) in Dancing at Lughnasa at the National Theatre. Photo by Johan Persson
Truth is stranger than fiction in this depiction of last year’s libel case, adapted from the courtroom’s actual transcripts. But what point is it making?