There aren’t many shows when the performer comes out to the queue as a kind of personal warm up act, but that is what Peadar de Burca did before his two man show with Brian O’Gibne, Why Men Cheat. If the seemingly endless line of distracting latecomers had known that, they might have made the effort to turn up on time. As it happened, they also missed out on the wine those of us who did were treated to.
With no costumes and no props, other than two chairs, these two men act out the result of a survey carried out by de Burca involving 200 men and 100 women to find out why men cheat.
Using fast pace Irish craic, with terms like ‘firing flirtbombs’, they take us through these real stories with comic as well as moving effects. O’Gibne was particularly funny in his portrayal of the various women involved and with his great skill with a variety of voices and accents of the spectrum of characters.
This is a no-holds-barred, outrageous yet thoroughly recognisable telling of the transparent mystery that is the eternal triangle. What are clues of a man’s infidelity? He starts washing and dressing. Boom, boom! They show the worlds of Mars and Venus and at least at the show this reviewer attended had very good humoured audience participation. The running time could have been a wee bit shorter but maybe that was just the heat and noisy ventilation.
The big group hug among the audience, that was ‘like Mass’, proved this was an open armed adult acceptance of the fact of life of cheating, listing a long line its famous followers as proof. But everybody likes a happy ending and in spite of all that’s gone before, the show ends with a tale of what everyone is probably seeking - ultimate fidelity. This is an engaging, entertaining and unusual show.
Til 30 August
5.15pm
Ticket Prices
£12-£14 (£10-£12)