#work rss Apple RSS The Irish Times - Culture [p?c1=2&c2=8946263&cv=2.0&cj=1] IFRAME: //www.googletagmanager.com/ns.html?id=GTM-M9Q373 * Search * Newsletters * Crossword * Notices * My Account * Sign Out * Subscribe * Sign In [adserv|3.0|826.1|4268908|0|225|ADTECH;loc=300;target=_blank;kvtopic=St age;kvcat=arts,+culture+and+entertainment;cookie=info;] Menu The Irish Times Sun, Jan 17, 2016 ^Sign In Welcome * The Irish Times * News * Sport * Business * Opinion * Life & Style * Culture * More * Video * Podcasts * Executive Jobs * Subscribe * My Account * Sign Out * Sign In * * Culture * Stage * Stage Reviews All Culture * Books + Book Reviews + The Book Club + Poetry + Hennessy NIW + IT Books * Film + Film Reviews * Music + Album Reviews * Stage + Stage Reviews * Art & Design * TV, Radio, Web * Photography * Treibh * Heritage * Specials + David Bowie + Century + Modern Ireland in 100 Artworks * Podcasts + Off Topic By using this website, you consent to our use of cookies. For more information on cookies see our Cookie Policy. (BUTTON) X Review: Weighing In There are plenty of obvious flavours in this show, which is as edgy as a marshmallow Fri, Jan 16, 2015, 16:27 Peter Crawley Weighing In Bewley’s Café Theatre, Dublin ** Whatever you make of Ger Gallagher’s undemanding comedy, you can’t fault its timing. When better to stage a two-hander about dieting, tortured self-image and desperate optimism than the beginning of a new year, a period of regrets and as-yet unbroken resolutions? Gallagher’s comedy, now presented by Bewley’s and Jill Thornton, is not exactly a crash-programme, though. It has been touring to theatres since early last year, and, like its characters, it has worked to change its shape - albeit minimally - from a radio play to a stage performance. Like its self-mortifying characters, however, it seems to decide it was happier the way it was. We first see Val (Isobel Mahon), an uptight parody of a D4 mummy determined to stay yummy, in a conspiracy of lycra. Breda (Rose Henderson) meanwhile, camouflaged in bulky layers, is scooping out the last of a demolished crisp packet. Both enter a regional outpost of Easi-Slim, a Weight-Watchers style group that urges its members towards a slimmer future through a steady diet of calorie-counting and psychological humiliation - point-scoring, if you will. An extremely likely “unlikely friendship” develops between the odd couple, built on conversations during various exercise regimes. They talk about their husbands as they power walk; one a corporate vulture, the other a modest middle manager at the same struggling factory. They speak of their children as they stretch; Val’s are high achieving and distant, Breda’s are generically scampish and warm. And by the time they reach yoga, they have changed profoundly; Val on the verge of self-insight, Breda half the woman she used to be. This is all as edgy as a marshmallow, but that’s the intention, and director Caroline FitzGerald doesn’t apologise for the one-note jokes. Henderson and Mahon are personable performers who give the gags all the benefit of their consummate eye acting: widening, darting and rolling through a mild satire on body image, domestic turbulence and food fascism. There are hints, though, that Gallagher considered something slightly more nutritious: a recessionary backdrop that is more famine than feast; how food desire replaces appetites unmet elsewhere; or defining at least one of her characters in anything other than domestic terms (Breda has a job she never talks about). Instead, the play concludes that a life of skinny denial is an isolating misery, while calorific indulgence makes you a more loving person. Now, that’s a regime most of us will try. But it’s going straight to our hips. Until Jan 24 * Topics: * Caroline Fitzgerald * Ger Gallagher * Isobel Mahon * Jill Thornton * Rose Henderson Subscribe. More from The Irish Times * Books An illustration from Aharon Appelfeld’s Adam & Thomas Children’s book reviews: a trio of compelling stories * Travel Down under and dirty in the real Outback * People Impossibly photogenic: the Tiger’s Nest, or Taktsang Palphug, monastery, Bhutan’s most sacred site. Photograph: EyesWideOpen/Getty Bhutan: the price of paradise * Music Pop Corner: Selena marks her ex’s spot; Zayn chaffed at control ADVERTISEMENT [adserv|3.0|826.1|4268906|0|170|ADTECH;loc=300;target=_blank;kvtopic=St age;kvcat=arts,+culture+and+entertainment;cookie=info;] ADVERTISEMENT The Irish Times Logo Sign In Email Address ____________________ Password ____________________ [ ] I agree to the Terms & Conditions, Community Standards and Privacy Policy (BUTTON) Sign In Don't have an account? Sign Up Forgot Password? 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ADVERTISEMENT [adserv|3.0|826.1|4268909|0|170|ADTECH;loc=300;target=_blank;kvtopic=St age;kvcat=arts,+culture+and+entertainment;cookie=info;] [image.jpg] IFRAME: https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/playl ists/72151780&color=b74f7d&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comm ents=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false Subscribe on iTunes Follow on Soundcloud Listen on Stitcher Most Read in Culture 1 Family sugar audit: Eva Orsmond with Louise and Ollie Ryan Television: A sugar-crash course in how we are poisoning ourselves 2 Michael B Jordan and Sylvester Stallone in Creed ‘Apollo Creed meant everything to African-Americans’ 3 Did Philip K Dick dream of electric sheep? Much worse 4 Final bow: Matthew Perry, Lisa Kudrow, David Schwimmer, Courteney Cox, Jennifer Aniston and Matt LeBlanc at the end of the final Friends, in 2004 Friends: they lived perfect lives in a time of plenty. Of course we want them back 5 ‘I think cognitive enhancers should be allowed for academics’ Unthinkable: Is it unethical to take brain stimulants? 6 Dublin Rapper Tommy KD: “I never dreamt I’d be doing stuff like this, like getting the album out or playing my own shows. But at the same time, it’s important to say that everything’s not rosy.” Photograph: Cyril Byrne / THE IRISH TIMES Tommy KD: the Dublin rapper with one of the toughest stories in Irish music 7 Giant’s staircase: Utec, Lima has ‘opened up exciting new frontiers for Peruvian architecture’. Photograph: Grafton Architects, Iwan Baan Studio Bravo Lima: the Irish architects designing the ‘new geography’ 8 Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards: And the nominees are . . . 9 Joseph O’Connor on David Bowie, pictured here in 1965: “Kurt Vonnegut once wrote that the only plausible mission of the artist is ‘to make people feel they’re glad to be alive, at least a little bit.’ There are not many artists who’ve ever managed to achieve that highest of accolades. In my own life, David Bowie was one of them. He was part of my soundtrack, my passport, my pillow. I feel I was enriched to be around during his spell on the planet.” Photograph: CA/Redferns/Getty Images David Bowie: Irish writers pay tribute 10 The dialogues the author creates between Plato and various contemporary characters, including a marketing agent, a Google employee, a Tiger Mum, a radio host and a neuroscientist, convincingly demonstrate the value of continuing the job that Socrates started in ancient Greece. But they also show just why Plato would struggle to be heard today. Photograph: Hulton Archive/Getty Images Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away, by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein Never miss a story. 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