Writer: Karis Kelly
Director: Katie Posner
When four generations of women from the same Irish family gather together in a play to celebrate the 90th birthday of the Great Grandmother of the youngest of the four, it’s always likely that things won’t go smoothly, but to say that things go slightly awry in Consumed would be a major understatement, and the play ends up in a very different place from where it begins.
Before taking the first of two sharp turns that steer into almost pitch black territory, it’s a more straightforward generational comedy with great grandmother Eileen (Julia Dearden) coming across as a cross between Father Jack from Father Ted and Mrs Brown, as she delivers sweary belligerent ripostes to everyone, but particularly her daughter Gilly (Andrea Irvine) who is revealed to a neurotic hoarder. With the two older family members living together in the Northern Ireland town they grew up in, it’s no surprise that Gilly’s daughter Jenny (Caoimhe Farren) left home to live in London where her daughter, Muireann (Muireann Ní Fhaogáin) was born, and only mildly surprising that it’s been three years since she’s been back.
While each of the characters could be seen as cliches or ciphers for their generation, with Muireann in particular demonstrating every trope of a stereotypical 14 year old, Karis Kelly’s script bites with a sharp wit that the cast deliver with relish under Katie Posner’s direction. There are fantastic moments where soup and plastic bags provide the vehicle for great comedy as well as showing off each of the character’s personal predilections, and the attempts at politeness that are always tempered by clashing personalities also works to show why they seldom get together.
The absence of two husbands is the elephant in the room that gets increasingly larger until it comes into full view in a way that is equal parts hilarious and macabre until it escalates into an argument that reveals the reasons for the animosity and lack of real connection between the generations. The accusations fly, but it feels too sudden for it to happen.
When it’s taken even further by a closing section that feels more like grafted on social commentary rather than anything the play has been building to, there is the sense that the play is trying to do too much in its 80 minutes and needs to decide what it wants to be rather than change direction to end up with a conclusion that fails to deliver a satisfying ending.
Runs until 24 August 2025 (not Monday’s) | Image: Pamela Raith
