Faith Healer by Brian Friel. The Lyric Theatre, King Street, Hammersmith, London W6 to 13 April 2024. 4✩✩✩✩ Review: William Russell.
Photo Credit: Marc Brenner.
Faith Healer by Brian Friel. The Lyric Theatre, King Street, Hammersmith, London W6 to 13 April 2024. 4✩✩✩✩ Review: William Russell.
“A spell binding revival of a very fine play.”
Directed by Rachel O’Riordan this revival of Brian Friel’s play about a charlatan, his wife and his manager each recalling their time together in turn is a spell binding affair, although maybe a little more volume from Declan Conlon who plays Frank Hardy, the faith healer who just once might really have cured some people who came to one of his meetings would help. Frank knows he is no healer, and yet just possibly sometimes something might happen – and once upon a time something did. It torments him as he recalls his time on the road round Wales, the far north of Scotland and in Ireland, insists he is not married, would have liked to have children. Then we get Grace, played by Justine Mitchell, recalling her version of their travels, clearly deeply in love with the child that was stillborn and is buried in a field somewhere, the life in the van in which they journeyed, and finally we hear from Teddy, played by Nick Holder, their manager, who coped with the impossible pair and recalls his other clients, the lady who had some 240 pigeons, the musical whippet which could play the pipes, his life on the halls with relish, and the problem of Frank’s behaviour, his love for Grace. Each of them remembers things differently, memory is unreliable, but life was harsh and we know something dreadful will happen when Frank returns to Ballybeg, the town in Ireland where he came from, because if you play with people’s hopes when you disappoint those hopes they seek retribution. It is a much revived piece and here gets as fine a production as can be. Conlon is, even if too quiet to start with, a man who knows his weaknesses, who is absorbed in himself, while Grace takes refuge from reality in a bottle of scotch and Teddy knocks back the beers and plays the Fred Astaire record of The Way You Look Tonight which they used to introduce the healer remembering a very different world from the other two. Beautifully set – a poster for Frank’s shows, a few chairs, a peeling back wall – and performed to perfection this is as fine a revival as could be.
Cast
Declan Conlon – Frank.
Justine Mitchell – Grace.
Nick Holder – Teddy.
Creatives
Director – Rachel O’Riordan.
Set & Costume Designer – Colin Richmond.
Lighting Designer – Paul Keogan.
Composer & Sound Designer – Anna Clock.
Voice & Dialect Coach – Patricia Logue.
