Reviews of The Playboy of the Western World at the National Theatre starring Nicola Coughlan, Siobhán McSweeney & Éanna Hardwicke

"The Playboy of the Western World is a twisty treat"

"Nicola Coughlan is a spirited presence in the classic Irish drama that still sets off sparks"

"It doesn’t come around very often, but whenever it does I am always thrilled to see it."

"Pegeen is not the only one attracted to Christy’s tales of derring-do and it is amusing to watch her and the older Widow Quin (Coughlan’s Derry Girls co-star Siobhán McSweeney) show a bit of leg in covert competition for his attention."

"Yet as matters subsequently sour, Synge offers us the salutary reminder that “there’s a great gap between a gallant story and a dirty deed”. How uncannily this speaks to our social media age, where reputations are made and destroyed overnight."

"For all its ebullience, Abbey Theatre artistic director Caitríona McLaughlin allows her production too languorous a pace at times"

"This treat of a play leaves its characters, not to mention its audience, asking themselves some long, hard questions."

"A strong turn from Nicola Coughlan"

"The Bridgerton star plays a feisty barmaid in this revival of JM Synge’s 1907 comedy that once caused riots"

"It’s a great coup for the National Theatre to have tempted Nicola Coughlan back to the stage from the stellar televisual orbit to which Derry Girls and especially Bridgerton have propelled her"

"... the portrayal of poverty and repressed lasciviousness that caused riots when the play originally opened at Dublin’s Abbey Theatre now feel quaint and stereotypical."

"Hardwick’s stylised, child-like performance as Christy, and Coughlan’s more naturalistic one... are the strongest aspects of this revival by Catrionia McLaughlin, the Abbey’s current artistic director. Her production celebrates the play’s lyrical language but falls prey to its meandering, repetitive structure."

"Though I’m probably outing myself as an insular English ponce to say this, Synge’s dialogue — where English follows the syntax and cadences of Irish — takes some getting used to."

"The play is full of rich and elegant imagery"

"... the sly and witty performance of Coughlan’s Derry Girls co-star Siobhán McSweeney"

"Nicola Coughlan serves comedy and tragedy in pub drama"

"Coughlan plays a barmaid, alongside Derry Girls co-star Siobhán McSweeney, in JM Synge’s 1907 classic"

"This revival by the Abbey’s current artistic director, Caitríona McLaughlin, makes clear that it is something of a woman’s play, ahead of its time, with two female leads abjuring conservative Catholic morality to hope for something bigger than a small, scratching country existence."

"... there are bumpy transitions between the drama of the first half, with a subtly twisting tension and notes of anxiety, to the physical comedy and outright farce of the second."

"Staged in its original, melodic Hiberno-English dialect, it is authentic but hard to follow at times, at least for this critic."

"Synge could even have been the Tarantino of his time, glamorising Christy’s violence. But it seems old-fashioned in this faithfully period production."

"An assured turn from Nicola Coughlan"

"The Bridgerton star is a standout in JM Synge’s play, alongside Derry Girls alumna Siobhán McSweeney, but this National Theatre staging misses the text’s dark humour"

"[Nicola Coughlan] gives an assured performance as a wilful young woman who falls under the spell of Christy Mahon"

"But be warned: this production from Caitríona McLaughlin, the artistic director of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, is too reverential to do full justice to the dark humour in the text. It’s also delivered in strong traditional accents that will leave outsiders straining to make sense of the dialogue."

"Still, Siobhán McSweeney, another Derry Girls star, raises many a smile as the conniving Widow Quin"

"When the storyline sags, you can while away the time by admiring the set design... Eye-catching, yes, but not quite enough to make the drama seem more than a mildly intriguing period piece."

"Nicola Coughlan leads a gorgeous but uneven production"

"JM Synge’s 1907 Irish tragicomedy captures a community’s ravening hunger for something new"

"Two of Ireland’s best-loved comic actors go head to head in this moody staging of a neglected 1907 farce. Nicola Coughlan (Bridgerton, Derry Girls) and Siobhán McSweeney (Derry Girls) are armoured in corsets and many-layered skirts, fighting over the same man – the title’s Playboy."

"JM Synge’s landmark Irish tragicomedy is a singular exploration of mass hysteria, female sexuality and mob rule. It’s also densely written and deeply strange, meaning it’s not a straightforward watch – but its leads have got enough vigour and wit to carry us through."

"Artistic director of Dublin’s Abbey Theatre Caitríona McLaughlin has decided to lean into this story’s richness and oddness by framing it with scenes from Irish village life at its very creepiest."

"Still, McLaughlin doesn’t really do enough to make this undeniably powerful (and on-trend) aesthetic speak to this play. Instead, the tone feels disconcertingly uneven."

"What does come across powerfully is the sense of this isolated, impoverished community’s ravening hunger for something new – something better"

"Bridgerton’s Nicola Coughlan can’t save this inaudible Irish classic"

"The National ought to have resolved the inaccessibility of JM Synge’s poetry before staging The Playboy of the Western World"

"Nicola Coughlan, of Derry Girls and Bridgerton fame, is the main draw for this revival of JM Synge’s once scandalous 1907 oddity"

"... the National’s production is hampered by an avoidable problem: thanks to the use of archaic Irish accents and syntax, Synge’s succulent poetry is frequently unintelligible – almost to the point of inaccessible – to those not acquainted with the dialect."

"In Caitriona McLaughlin’s staging, it becomes partly a comedy of repressed female desire."

"You can trace a direct line between Synge’s lurid farce, the existential comedy of Beckett and the queasy closeness between absurdity and violence in Martin McDonagh."

"... although the production gathers pace in the second half, when Mahon’s myth-making takes on farcical dimensions it never fully flares into life. An evening of fitful satisfaction."

"Appealingly edgy and unsettling"

"Strong performances from Nicola Coughlan and Declan Conlon hold together this uneven, oddly paced study of rural insularity"

"It might feel innocuous now, but Abbey Theatre director Caitriona McLaughlin still gives this revival an appealingly edgy, unsettling treatment."

"McLaughlin pitches the piece somewhere between slow-building farce and folk horror, with lies and misunderstandings gradually piling up over the course of long, directionless conversations until the characters collapse under their weight."

"Katie Davenport’s striking design work elevates the production."

"It looks great; bleak and vivid and just slightly disconcerting. But the performances themselves are uneven, with some of the cast members needing time to lock into the particular, lilting rhythm of Synge’s writing"

"Bridgerton alumnus Nicola Coughlan’s Pegeen is garrulous and tough... Coughlan’s Derry Girls co-star Siobhán McSweeney is strong, too, as sly, forceful Widow Quin, projecting flirtatious self-assurance but carrying a weight of grief that threatens to overwhelm her in private moments."

"It’s not just that the poetic, scattershot Irish classic is staged by Dublin Abbey Theatre’s Caitríona McLaughlin and designed by her visionary collaborator Katie Davenport, her work here painterly and gorgeous."

"Nicola Coughlan as publican’s daughter Pegeen Mike, obsessed with titular playboy Christy Mahon (Éanna Hardwicke, terrific) until she gets his measure followed by her vengeance, is a luscious, complex but frustrated woman"

"Hardwicke’s surprisingly fragile Christy is no swaggering charmer, more a bewildered kid who can’t quite believe he’s become the centre of so much attention."

"Honestly, Synge’s text, delivered with immaculate fidelity to a very specific dialect, is challenging to anybody not au fait with the vernacular of early 20th century County Mayo."

"There’s little dramatic conflict until late in the play, but McLaughlin, Davenport and team (James Farncombe’s lighting is particularly powerful) seduce with visuals and concepts."

"This is a sumptuous production, rich in detail, craft and spectacle. It’s impressive but dramatically inert"

"Nicola Coughlan is excellent but this revival of JM Synge’s classic Irish comedy is muddled and heavy-going"

"Unless you’re fluent in turn-of-the-twentieth-century Hiberno-English, John Millington Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World requires proper, eyes-wide-open concentration. And even more so in this NT revival"

"At its best, hers is a production that rewards attentiveness, weaving in beautiful, affecting images of County Mayo folklore alongside some standout acting performances."

"... it feels like a strange choice for the National Theatre’s 2025 programme, and the production comes across as a hodgepodge of competing ideas."

"Despite an assured, characterful performance, Éanna Hardwicke makes Christy a constantly wowed dufus. Which begs the question: could this really be a man who has hordes of women running after him?"

"Still, most of the audience will likely have bagged tickets to see the outstanding Nicola Coughlan, and they will not be disappointed. The Bridgerton megastar looks right at home as the feisty barmaid Pegeen"

"It is a real shame, then, that the production feels so tonally muddled."