Disco Pigs at the Everyman: Enda Walsh’s anniversary production leaves us mostly at a loss as to what’s going on

Detailed summary

Theatre review: Key directorial and design choices stop the audience getting to grips with the forbidding patter that supplies much of the play’s power

First staged in 1996, at Triskel Arts Centre in Cork, Disco Pigs was Enda Walsh’s breakout play. It also launched the careers of its two performers, Cillian Murphy and Eileen Walsh.

Written in densely stylised argot, this gritty tale about two wayward teenagers adapted the in-your-face aesthetic of Mark Ravenhill, Sarah Kane and Trainspotting to contemporary “Pork Sity”. There followed a 2001 film adaptation, also starring Murphy, that sanded off the dialogue’s rougher edges and shifted towards realist convention.

Marking its 30th anniversary, Disco Pigs has now returned to its hometown in a revival at the Everyman, which is directed by Walsh himself for the first time.

Notwithstanding the theatre’s Victorian grandeur, this staging retains a grungy, stripped-down appearance. Katie Davenport’s set consists of two ugly upholstered chairs of the kind you might find in a pub diningroom…

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