The Beauty Queen of Leenane review, Young Vic

Martin McDonagh wrote the thrillingly shocking, award-winning Pillowman around stories of child murder, so it shouldn't be a shock that The Beauty Queen of Leenane proves not to be as innocent as either the title or the setting - a crumbling cottage at the top of a hill in rural Ireland - suggest.

Mag Folan and her spinster daughter, Maureen, live in cold, wet Connemarra in a situation reminiscent today of Lou and Andy in Little Britain. At the sink into which her mother vindictively empties her chamber pot, Maureen slavishly makes the Complan and the porridge. Mag, posited in her rocking chair like a carbuncle, barks orders and nit-picks, resonant with complaint. We're in a world within a world, still found in pockets of the Irish Republic, where immigration is the only escape. When rugged navvy, Pato Dooley, turns up in Leenane and suggests Maureen leaves for Boston with him, is all what it seems?

Hot under the squalor

McDonagh has you laughing one minute and recoiling the next - the pieces rolling effortlessly into each other so that pleasure and pain are often one and the same. How much of what we are seeing is real and how much is lies? Director Joe Hill-Gibbins cranks up the tension exploring the writer's favourite theme. The gloves are off - the mother-daughter relationship stripped to the bone. After a gently winning first act, the second brings audible gasps.

In conclusion: Glorious writing and a solid cast make this beautifully set revival a must-see. Following a sell-out national tour, it's back at the Young Vic for just a few weeks. Grab a seat while you can.

References
Michael Billington review in The Guardian
The Young Vic, tickets