Here come Pig and Runt again, tearing up Pork Sity on their seventeenth birthday in a frenzy of frustration, passion and bone-crunching, blood-oozing violence.
Enda Walsh’s short, savage and tender Cork odyssey, with its jagged dialogue and gritty flights of lyricism, was a hit in 1996/97. But for all its swagger, and its lurid, cartoon-bright evocation of anarchic teenage kicks and simmering social resentments coming to the boil, it was always a play of style rather than substance.
Now, in this revival by JMK award-winner Cathal Cleary, Walsh’s writing also looks rather dated, from the typically Nineties gore-infused poeticism to the pop-cultural references to rave and ‘Baywatch’.
Still, Cleary’s production has a jittery excitement, performed on a dispiriting suburban-home set by Chloe Lamford, filled with sad streamers and flaccid balloons. Charlie Murphy as Runt and Rory Fleck as Pig are obnoxious, poignant and irresistibly watchable; and there’s some nimble use of props – Barbie dolls and shop-window dummies – to embody the supporting characters in their self-created mythology. It still doesn’t satisfy, but it’s done with undeniable flourish.