Review by Steve Bennett

Bronagh’s Big Weekend is a sweet, gentle, character monologue based around Irish dancing... although the humour is a little too gentle for anything more than mild contentment.

Helen O’Brien, a regular festival visitor, plays the part of Bronagh Quinn, recalling a conveniently incident-packed couple of days in 1987 when, as a 13-year-old girl in Bolton, she was a bridesmaid, a birthday girl and a national finalist in a dancing competition – and, unbeknown to her, about to experience her first period.

There’s pleasure in the details she evokes over the 45 minutes, from overcooked chicken kievs, to Women’s Realm to ra-ra dresses, and O’Brien clearly has ambitions to be the next Alan Bennett through her whimsical drollery.

But although her writing is evocative, the turns of phrase aren’t deft enough or, crucially, funny enough, for the tone to be much more than agreeable nostalgia. What would work if billed as a spoken word piece, or a Radio 4 monologue, seems to fall short when sold as an outright comedy.

To drive the drama, she conjurers up set pieces, from a brawl at the wedding to puking over her dancing shoes after her first taste of Southern Comfort, which are easily pictured, since she kindles the imagination with soft-spoken performance and descriptive prose. An Eighties soundtrack presses the right buttons, too, especially when the young Bronagh heralds an ‘artistic watershed’ by choreographing the traditional moves to New Order’s latest. O’Brien does the dancing, too, legs a-blur.

Talent and charm are plentiful; it’s just the laughs that are scarce.

Review date: 3 Aug 2013
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett