Matthew Blaney and Stephen Kennedy. Photo by Lidia Crisafulli

Not Now by David Ireland – Finborough Theatre, London

Published in Plays International.

‘Not Now’ is the third new David Ireland play staged at the Finborough Theatre since 2017, in what is becoming a partnership of significance. First seen in a Glasgow pub earlier this year, the two-hander comes to London in a new production directed by Max Elton, who was also responsible for last year’s Ireland/Finborough venture, ‘Yes So I Said Yes’. Both plays are set in contemporary Belfast and deal with the search for masculine identity in a post-conflict Northern Ireland. They could not be more different. 

Ireland is known for his hilariously dark comedy, seen to general acclaim in ‘Cyprus Avenue’ and ‘Ulster American’. His work bears some similarity to Martin McDonagh’s plays of the 1990s, in which horrified laughter is the only possible response to the absurdity of sectarian conflict. Ireland’s provocations reached a peak with the epically offensive ‘Yes So I Said Yes’, which contained some of the darkest material seen on a UK stage in recent years. ‘Not Now’ is the calm after the storm: a deceptively simple play that conceals multiple levels of meaning. Ireland has, perhaps, written a perfect play about Northern Ireland post-conflict, post-peace, post-Brexit and post-truth.

The play opens with the young Matthew (Matthew Blaney) practising the opening soliloquy from ‘Richard III’ and making a meal of it, dragging one leg around the kitchen table like a comic Olivier. Ray (Stephen Kennedy) catches him at it, and an awkward conversation begins across the divide. Ray is Matthew’s uncle, and his unnamed brother, Matthew’s father, has just died. Matthew has an audition at RADA that morning and is about to fly to London and, potentially, an entirely new future. Ray is a painter and decorator, a recovering alcoholic, with no apparent future. Their discussion is equal parts hilarious and troubling. Ray’s inability to remember names leads to some very entertaining exchanges about the actors “Ciaran Farrelly” (Colin Farrell) and “big Liam thingy”. Ray also has problems with the conceptual difference between Richard III and Hamlet. If Hamlet kills just as many people, why is Richard the baddie? Is it because he didn’t mean to? There is much more to these conversations than we first realise. Family secrets start to emerge and no-one, dead or alive is what they seem. They are all pretending, even Matthew who plans to audition in an English accent rather than his natural Belfast, but has problems with the first word in his speech, “now”.

Both Matthew Blaney and Stephen Kennedy give excellent performances, neither putting a foot wrong. Blaney is direct yet confused, at the exact moment in his life when identity is shaped one way or another. Kennedy is equal parts funny and sad. Stocky and older, but not as old as he seems, he is worn away by hiding and by his secret which, we discover, is more shameful than anyone could imagine. Max Elton swirls the action deftly around the central table that occupies the Finborough’s tiny stage, framed by designer Ceci Calf’s lovely 1970s estate buttresses.  

In a taught 50 minutes, nothing happens without a very good reason. The Hamlet/Richard III discussion, for instance, becomes directly relevant to the secret the two men must face. Every word revolves, implicitly or explicitly, around what it means to be Northern Irish and Protestant, what to do about the past, and how to create an identity that is neither charming Irishman, nor Loyalist throwback, but real. It is all here: colonialism, violence, masculinity, shame, sexuality, history, culture, honesty, truth. ‘Not Now’ is a small but exquisite work, and in some ways the logical extension of David Ireland’s more flamboyant writing. He and the Finborough which, under its Artistic Director Neil McPherson, won London Pub Theatre of the Year only a couple of weeks ago, continue to deliver must-see new writing.