Writer: Esosa Ighodaro
Director: Esosa Ighodaro
Esosa Ighodaro sets the main stage of the Smock Alley Theatre ablaze for this year’s Dublin Theatre Festival with her new play Let Me In. Ighodaro is a creative on the rise: a writer, director, and performer (though she doesn’t flex that third skill for this production), who has worked with Smock Alley’s Rachel Baptiste programme and the Everyman in Cork to develop this incredibly well-executed piece of theatre. Centred around Lola (Ebby O’Toole-Acheampong), Let Me In explores the topic of belonging in Ireland – the land of a hundred thousand welcomes, but not for everyone.
The audience find themselves in Seán (Naoise Dunbar) and Lola’s flat, on the eve of Seán’s birthday, where Lola has finished another heavy shift with the fire brigade, and Seán is preparing his own birthday meal for his friends Gaz (Darragh Feehely) and Beibhinn (Alexandra Conlon). We never really leave this space; it’s where we watch Lola and Seán loving on each other while still struggling to understand each other, where we learn about the layers in Seán and Beibhinn’s relationship, where we laugh at Gaz’s competitiveness and cringe at his ignorance, and where we ache for Lola as she pleads to be allowed to hate Ireland as she loves it, just as any other Irish person gets to do.
The themes are dark and uncomfortable: how is it that a country where millions of its descendants are spread across the globe, there are still voices who shout that Ireland is only for the Irish? But threaded in from the very beginning, in this absolutely seamless and satisfying way, is a biting humour that gives the audience space and grace to laugh through the discomfort, a wonderful kindness from Ighodaro, and the reason why this piece is so deeply watchable. While Justine Doswell erects a wall of pallets in the background, quietly feeding the audience drips of dread, the rest of the cast deliver on dialogue that is alternately acerbic and awkward, all the while bringing a level of physical humour that is joyful to behold – particularly from Feehely, who steals the show in this regard. Yemi Adenuga makes an appearance as Lola’s mother, and provides one of the funniest and most unexpected entrances that this reviewer has ever seen.
O’Toole-Acheampong is a very likeable Lola, she masterfully opens and closes over the 75-minute run, at times gentle with Dunbar, at others caustic with Feehely. And a mention must be given to Paula O’Reilly, who directs a tender and natural intimacy between O’Toole-Acheampong and Dunbar. The cast have a great chemistry, and there are lovely pockets of pairing all through the dinner party scene, where we see the individual relationships so clearly, which is a feat given the relatively short length of the piece.
Undoubtedly Ighodaro will take this beyond the Dublin Theatre Festival, and if not it would be a real shame, as she has written and directed something that should tour the length and breadth of the country, holding up a mirror that many people could benefit from looking into, and making us all cry out in laughter as we simultaneously crease our brows in shame.
Runs Until 10th October 2026.
