Gareth's Culture and Travel Blog

In the Barbican / Guildhall School’s Silk Street Theatre the seating has gone and there are five giant white boxes inside which there are five rooms. You enter them in turn and once you’ve absorbed the extraordinary detail of Paul Fahy’s design, there is a recorded monologue. This makes it different from anything I’ve seen before.

We started in the Kitchen, typical of a modest family home, then on to a shabby Hotel Room for a very hypnotic monologue from Niall Buggy. The Bathroom smelt like it had just been used and there was something very creepy about the Girls Bedroom. We ended in a grubby Office where the smell once again pervaded the room, and things took a more sinister turn. The monologues were read by five fine Irish actors and were occasionally broken up by sounds and light effects.

Enda Walsh’s stories are very poetic but I didn’t always engage with or fully understand the narrative. The whole thing was mesmerising though, and you’re still processing it long after it’s over. It’s an original idea brilliantly executed and for once my three fellow travellers proceeded with the silence it both needed and deserved.