Huffin’ glue come with issues
Niamh Fennessy’s script in 'Glue' is clever, funny and disarmingly challenging
Niamh Fennessy pounds onto the stage with a shopping bag full of stuff her boyfriend has thieved from Tesco.
It’s a look-away-nothing-to-see-here moment for an audience that becomes her confidante as she rattles through her chaotic life with her scumbag boyfriend.
‘Waster’ wouldn’t sum him up, really and bringing him home to meet Mammy is defo not an option.
She used to thieve herself, ye know, ‘but grew out of it’ after shops barred her.
She misses the thrill of getting’ away with it…beatin’ the system…a step ahead of capitalism.
Still…she loves Kev. Not the easiest chap in the world to warm to, now, you know.
But there’s no accounting for taste as the woman said when she kissed the cow.
She met him on the waltzer in Tramore and he was ‘so so cool’.
As the disco beat of the waltzer booms across the theatre and feet start to thump, she recalls their first meeting.
He owned that floor, flipped the cars with a cool nonchalance and moonwalked across the rumbling, tumbling floorboards with the grace of an Apollo.
Aaand…when he winked as he clunked that iron bar that fastened her in…ketchung…wellll…she was his from that moment onwards.
The audience sighs.
All the world loves a lover.
She knows he’s not the best-lookin’ fella in the world.
He’s not even the best-lookin’ geezer on the waltzer.
BUT…’I love him’ although she can’t really figure out why.
And that’s the intriguing question about tonight’s script.
Why would any girl become involved with a young man that clearly has neither a future nor even a present?
In this sense, Niamh Fennessy’s character becomes everywoman.
Every woman who has loved and lived unwisely.
Every woman who believes that she can make the Kevs of this world into better people.
Every woman who wants what’s normal and wants to spurn chaos as a way of living a life.
It explains why Niamh never names her heroine.
After all..she’s got a job now.
On the desk at the Jade Palace.
No more thievin’ for her because she’s fed up being barred from shops.
Still…’I miss Debenhams for the little bits and pieces like eye-shadow…lipstick…nail polish…’
She’s come up in the world since she got a job at the Jade Palace and, know what, there’s free dinners.
She knows that it’s a genuine Chinese restaurant because it only takes cash.
She wants out of the life she’s living…but…’here I am…with Kev.’
Not everyone likes him.
They fight but…’sure everyone does…don’t they?
A lot of their rows centre on Kev’s flatmate Digger.
The name says it all.
Digger digs glue.
It’s cheap s**t but huffin’ glue come with issues.
Like constant bad breath and being covered in vomit.
One night, she only barely rescued him from choking on his own vomit and she fears what will happen to him if she leaves him.
She recalls a chaotic childhood of being constantly neglected and unminded.
But there was David.
Her mother’s live-in boyfriend who was genuinely kind and gentle and looked out for her.
It’s a love she misses since David dies young.
She prays to him and asks him to look out for her.
But the demons of her present-day existence are impossible to shake and when Kev phones, she bids her goodnight to the Royal’s listeners with a cursory nod and a challenging roar down the phone to ‘Kev…OK…I’m on my way’.
Niamh Fennessy’s script is clever, funny and disarmingly challenging.
Because it’s for all lovers who have loved unwisely at some stage in their lives but lived to tell the tale.
Her performance as Kev’s girlfriend is immense and her command of the stage is total throughout.
Niamh’s vocal range and inflexions share everything she wants to say and the fun and realism she brings to this role are joyous.
Loved it, as did the full house who were instantly on their feet at curtain.
