It’s vital that we, in this part of the UK, never forget the recent history of another part that can seem distant in so many ways. This is Belfast, a city that even now is divided by reinforced "Peace Lines" between Protestant and Catholic communities. This terrific work by writer/director Martin Lynch looks at three troubled decades in the life of Long Kesh/ The Maze, the prison that became a microcosm of the battle for territory and ideology throughout Northern Ireland.
Lynch’s punchy, high-energy account, using a six-strong ensemble, is based on interviews with ex-prisoners, prison officers and families of both. His own brothers were interned, and there is the unmistakable tang of authenticity to this captivating sweep both through big events in the prison’s history and tiny details of individual lives.
Freddie (Billy Clarke) is our prison warder narrator, starting off in the easy days before the introduction of the infamous internment without trial in 1971. Soon the pressure is ratcheted up, both for him and for those on his watch, as the IRA moves through its phases of "dirty" protests — attempting to turn H-Block into an infestation zone – and hunger strikes. Loyalist prisoners, massively in the minority, feature sporadically.
"The wife and kids will have to wait — let’s get the Brits out of Ireland first" largely sums up the attitudes of the Republican prisoners whom we get to know and, yes, admire, for the privations they’re prepared to endure. We see beleaguered wives trying to hold families together; Jo Donnelly makes a fine job of all female roles, as well as a wonderfully posturing (male) loyalist bodybuilder. An important drama, impeccably presented.
Until 17 April. Information: 020 7328 1000, www.tricycle.co.uk
The Chronicles Of Long Kesh
Tricycle Theatre
Kilburn High Road, NW6 7JR
