“The Beauty Queen of Leenane” by Martin McDonagh
Nottingham New Theatre.

Mag is 70 and sits in her rocking chair most of the day while her daughter, Maureen, skivvies for her.

Maureen is around 40 and tells us she has been caring for Mag for 20 years. Maureen has only ever kissed two men in her life – and that is two too many as far as Mag is concerned.

Initially, the picture we get of the relationship between mother and daughter, is that Mag is domineering and self-centred, and our sympathy builds for Maureen who we see as little more than an over-worked servant.

But even just a few minutes into the story, we begin to see another side of Maureen. As the story unfolds, the relationship is not all that we first imagined. Mag may come across as an overly protective mother, but she is, as we find later on, one of those elderly people who is afraid to be left to cope on her own.

Maureen is invited to a dance for a friend's party and she brings him home. He stays the night, but again later in the play, this was not the big night Maureen says it was.

The ending of the play is very dark, with some harrowing scenes of violence, and there are even more secrets that go unanswered, leaving the viewer to decide what they believe happened.

Making his Directorial debut in this deliciously dark piece of theatre is Cameron Brett, and a good job he made of it. He kept the pace just right and, me not knowing this play at all, created a chilling shock factor, complete with sound effects, making the abusive relationship seem very real.

NNT debuts are aplenty in this play with Esther Townsend making her debut as Maureen and Barney Hartwill debuting as Ray Dooley, Pato's brother and message boy.

Alice Walker also gets her first time Producer fold star in this play as well.

Playing Mag is Emma Pallett and Eric Crouch gets to grips with Maureen, playing Pato.

All four actors do a splendid job and each get their own special moment to shine as actors with some wonderful speeches, especially Eric with his letter back home to Maureen.

Keeping an accent up, and especially Irish accents, isn't easy but I think they all did a really good job. There were a couple of times where some of the words were lost due to the accent or projection but that's something you learn the more plays you perform.

The set was of a typical rural kitchen, basic but looked warm and cosy. The Set Designer has done their homework here with a fully functioning kitchen.

And that brings me on to the little things that could well have been overlooked. The tea was made, not pretence drinks, the kettle boiled, they used tea bags and milk. So many rimes I have seen drinks pretended to be made, poured and drank, and it takes away from the realism that the Director wanted to bring to the stage, but no, this little detail made what we were seeing real. Even down to the gravel path outside the kitchen window, which we didn't see. but we heard gave us that feeling of there being a world outside that kitchen window.

Another simple but effective piece of thinking was with the lights. Designed by Yasmine Dankwah, at the end of the scenes there was total blackout but the evocative music of the Cranberries filled in the time taken for the actors to re-position themselves within the black outs meaning that we, the viewer, then came back to the story afresh, devoid of set or actor movements.

A subtle sound design also made sure that we were placed within the action and atmosphere of the play. You felt that you were listening to the radio with Mag and watching the TV with Ray and Mag, Oliver Binns is responsible for getting this just right.

What i also must applaud as well is that, along with all of the plays this season in the main theatre at NNT, is that, instead of breaking up the atmosphere of the play with an interval, they played the whole play straight through. Sometimes in plays I just wish that we could just skip the interval and get on with the rest of the story, especially when there has been a tension built up by the cast. The audience and the cast then have to get back to where they left off. Not so with these plays at NNT. Straight through and done. I appreciate that in some pieces of theatre an interval is needed or set changes or for the length of the play, but it's great sometimes just to get on with the action, so thank you for doing just that.

What else can I say? Another cracking show from the NNT and more pats on the backs of everyone involved in my continued education of new pieces of theatre. Thank you.