Writer: Laura Brady
Director: Emma Finegan
Holy Teresa of the little flower and Saints Paul, John, George and even “bleedin’ Ringo” are invoked by 17 year old Northsider, Mary Connors to help her win Radio Eireann tickets to The Beatles concert at The Adelphi on Abbey Street. She is attending every mass within pedalling distance, “even the Protestant ones”. All of this is no mean feat given “not every pew has padding”.
Mary’s 18 year old cousin, and sometimes best friend, Bridie, or Bridget, now that she is a mature woman, is not nearly as enthusiastic at the coming of the “mop-topped” ‘Fab Four’ to their fair city, as she should be. What was the point in teaching Mary to twist if she has no interest in rocking the Elvis pelvis to Sweets For My Sweet or Blame it on the Bossa Nova? And actually, miracles do happen Bridie er Bridget, just look at Lourdes, Knock and the Holy Eucharist!
But Bridget, has more serious things on her mind than listening to Clancy’s Corner on the wireless and jiving around the kitchen to Papa Loves Mambo, not least of which is her lecherous boss Mr Mulhern, whose teeth could “eat an apple through a letterbox”, or “smell the knickers Micky” who has been stealing her stockings from the communal clothes line. Matters, however, may have something to do with her going “for a ride in the pram sheds” with boyfriend Macker who is “all fart and no shite”.
Laura Brady has written a corker of a play. It is an evocative, honeyed, sepia-toned snapshot of a moment in time. Under the watchful eye of dramaturg Catriona Daly, the comedic drama is set against The Beatles one and only concert ever to be played in Ireland and peppered with enough pop culture references, and allusions to real historical events, to place the action squarely in Dublin in 1963. A teddy boy steals Mary’s Da’s bike, the terrified duo race past the haunting remains of a collapsed tenement building on Fenian Street where two little girls died, and the terrible murder of 15 year old Hazel Mullen by her medical student boyfriend Shan Mohangi, is a topic of morbid fascination.
Costumes by Mae Leahy are bang on the money. The sight gag of Mary in hair-rollers under a see-through plastic scarf is an absolute howl. And, dare I say it, might be an image worth considering for any promotional material going forward. Similarly, the traditional kitchen set of the girls’ flat in Willow House by Anika Kidd is a faithful ode to 1960’s formica. The requisite picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus on the wall is a reminder, I’m sure, to each of the audience members of their Grandparent’s home.
But if the character of Bridget represents the repression of Irish women, their bodies and their rights in the Catholic country of their birth then Mary encapsulates the mighty roar of their struggle to overcome those rigid constraints. Jessica Dunne Perkins is excellent as a brooding teenager, brought low by relentless sexual harassment and her fear of social ostracism. She is “sick of minding everyone all the time” but conflicted between seizing an opportunity to escape and betraying her cousin.
The role of Mary is brighter, funnier and lends more scope for shining. And boy does Laura Brady shine. Talent fizzes through every pore of her body. Her character is the embodiment of the Beatlemania that was sweeping through young girls everywhere. Young girls who would eventually preside over the opening of the first family planning clinic in 1963, improve women’s rights with the 1965 Succession Act and overturn the marriage bar in 1973. There is effervescence in every gesture and movement Brady makes and authenticity in every mien she expresses. If Mary was a Beatles song, she would be Here Comes The Sun.
Peter McGann gives voice to various male personas throughout including the radio host and the girls’ dodgy neighbour. Director Emma Finegan has interpreted and translated this fine script in such a way as to extract every morsel of comedy, drama and pathos within it. Aptly chosen, the Fab Four’s popular track She Loves You closes the show. Having wandered down nostalgia’s alleys, laughed out loud and seat-grooved to some marvellous music, we’re now leaving with a tear in our eye. I’d call that a success!
Reviewed 3rd May 2026.
