Categories In a Little World of Our Own Print Media Reviews

In a Little World of Our Own at the Donmar Warehouse – Review

A Protestant Northern Ireland Family Drama

by David Benedict | March 3, 1998 | The Independent

When a hardman in a play tells another character to stop worrying because he’ll take care of it, you know he’s in for a nasty surprise. Even if you know nothing about it before taking your seat at Gary Mitchell’s In a little World of Our Own, it doesn’t take long to realise what’s afoot. It may come on like a Protestant Northern Ireland family drama but it quickly becomes clear that what we’re really watching is a whodunnit.

Ray (cold and threatening Stuart Graham) has a well-founded reputation for violence off-set by his fierce concern for his mentally retarded kid brother Richard. Gordon, the third brother, is engaged to devout Deborah and together they’re on the brink of buying a house in which they can look after Richard, whose crush on the 15-year-old daughter of Ray’s rival threatens to land everyone in trouble. Ray returns from taking Richard to a party to meet her, but their stories don’t match, suspicions are aroused,and cover-ups, threats and reprisals rear their ugly heads.

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Categories In a Little World of Our Own Interviews Print Media Stand and Deliver

Theatre: In a World of Whose Own?

She is an actress with a chameleon-like ability to swap accents, he is a writer whose work is anchored in his native Belfast. Together, they are on stage at the Donmar

by Jasper Rees | March 3, 1998 |  The Independent

ACTORS fall into two broad categories: those who play themselves and those who play other people. One type gets recognised in the street rather more than the other. Last year, while Lynda La Plante’s Trial and Retribution was being screened, Helen McCrory found herself dragged into a pub debate about the moral issues thrown up by the series. “I assumed arrogantly that this conversation had been sparked off by the fact that they knew who I was. They asked me my opinion and I realised after about 10 minutes they had no idea.”

You can see why. McCrory is currently at the Donmar in In a Little World of Our Own, a new play by Gary Mitchell in which she puts on an Ulster accent to play a born-again Christian in the heart of Protestant Belfast. In Stand and Deliver, a BBC film by Les Blair, she plays a feckless English photographer in Glasgow. In The James Gang, a road movie directed by Mike Barker, she’s a Scot who fetches up in Wales. The Donmar play opens the theatre’s annual “Four Corners” season: it sounds as if McCrory could play all four corners herself.

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