It just isn’t possible to sit through the performance without being charmed by the three characters. There is a sinuous, emotional clarity to Elaine Murphy’s writing. In that way the Irish often have of showing the English how the language ought to be used, the informal lilt of the craic makes poetry of prose without the slightest hint of pretension.  We warm to the theme through the language certainly, but that in itself is transmitted through the performances which are in themselves little gems.

The play consists of interlinked monologues by three generations of Irish women bound together not merely by the love found in familial ties, but also by hardship and fortune. This is not a dysfunctional family, quite the opposite, yet each woman faces challenging circumstances not entirely of their own making.

The youngest, Amber (Phoebe Mulcahy) narrates her journey from party animal to single mum – her feckless partner having legged it to Australia on the news of the impending nativity. Ms Mulcahy shows us open faced and eager for life youth at that inevitable stage where misguided innocence meets reality.

Much of the wit comes from the frank discussion of the emotional and sexual problems that each has to deal with.  The grandmother, Kay (Janet Adams) a sixty-something, coming to terms with her husband’s decline after a stroke, holds nothing back in a matter-of-fact discussion of her adventures in a sex shop and subsequent solitary shenanigans with one of it’s battery operated  products specifically designed for female pleasure – ‘an alien willy’.

Amber’s mum, Lorraine (Fay Greenhalgh) is determined to shape a new life having extricated herself from her drug-addicted husband. She takes herself off to a salsa class where she meets the dependable, but sexually undemanding Niall. Not a perfect match perhaps, but the right one for the time in steering her away from the imminent mental breakdown, which has found her shouting at a customer in the shop where she works.

Ultimately they are all in control of their own lives, beholden to no man (or priest). The women are ultimately mutually supporting. On stage interaction finally comes right at the end of the piece, after the funeral of Kay’s husband. As they snuggle up in bed together, with Amber’s baby, Little Gem, offering the physical and emotional balm which is the special preserve of women – one could not imagine a similar ending with three generations of men – we sense their resilience, their determination not to be crushed by circumstance.

★★★☆☆   Graham Wyles   23^rd October 2018