Dublin Theatre Festival 2026: Meredith

Chris O'Rourke

2 minutes ago

3 min read

Cal O'Driscoll, Dearbhla Molloy, Fiona Bell and Niall Buggy in Meredith. Image, Ros Kavanagh

***

Today, jobs exist, or at least viable income streams, that didn't exist thirty or forty years ago. Relationships have also been transformed, with modern families more likely to be broken and blended than forever and extended. Erica Murray's scrappy Meredith looking to repaint the family drama blame-game in current colours. Yet despite contemporary resonance, we still wind up with an old English, middle-class, family-trauma, afternoon tea party. Murray's class conscious, middle-of-the-road Meredith a charming, lightweight comedy that taps out once the fighting gets real.

Dearbhla Molloy, Tishé Fatunbi and Fiona Bell in Meredith. Image, Ros Kavanagh

A nest of insufferable vipers; Meredith makes a compelling case for being orphaned at birth as the healthiest form of child development. As for mothers and motherhood, you wouldn't wish either on your worst enemy. Those who choose to inflict their maternal instincts on innocent children being, like their children, damned if they stick around and damned if they don't. Like convalescing grandmother and self-centered grande dame, Meredith. Marinating on her wicker throne at the centre of her orangery, Dearbhla Molloy's unrepentant matriarch suggests a jolly doorbell whose daft, one-tone chime plays the same interminable tune no matter who's ringing it. A woman of flirty persuasion who, in her own mind, can do no wrong, the imperturbable Meredith's only concerns are her online French boyfriend and a local, low-level lothario she keeps dangling on a string. Meredith's 83-year-old, hip-injured desires less Last Tango in Paris so much as Last Tango in Halifax.

Niall Buggy and Dearbhla Molloy in Meredith. Image, Ros Kavanagh

A dim, privileged sun, Meredith's gravitational pull attracts paid satellites who wouldn't be there otherwise. Tishé Fatunbi's live-in carer, Abi, drawn by the swollen wage and free accommodation, is a working-class girl escaping minimum wage and a bad boyfriend. Pursued by Cal O'Driscoll's annoyingly feckless Lorcan. A lying, drug-dealing, middle-class DJ, grandson Lorcan loves Meredith's money and hates his overprotective mother, Noelle. Shagging the help and calling it love, a boy for whom the only suffering that matters is his own, the privileged Lorcan is the answer to why so many young people say they will never have children. Luckily, comic relief arrives via Niall Buggy living it large and loving every moment as ack-tor, Terry. Along with a divine Fiona Bell as the danger-avoidance Noelle. A frustrated martyr from whom the Good Lord above might very well have to ask for His cross back.

Fiona Bell, Dearbhla Molloy, Niall Buggy and Tishé Fatunbi in Meredith. Image, Ros Kavanagh

Abandoned by Meredith at sixteen and left to hold the family together, the nervous, overprotective Noelle sees the world as something to be wary of. Setting up comic tensions with the laid-back Roman fiddlers surrounding her. Yet here it all goes pear-shaped. Attempting to contrast uptight with "everything is all right," Meredith veers unsuccessfully into Two and a Half Men territory. Except there, scam artists and threatening drug dealers are purely cartoonish, with issues resolved and not left hanging. Like almost every issue it touches, including the loneliness and vulnerability of elders, or the pained legacy of families, Meredith runs at the first sign of substance, leaves most things unresolved and punctures what little dramatic tension it generates. When the final moment arrives it looks less like reconciliation so much as defeat for a condemned woman whose own needs will never be recognised or acknowledged.

Tishé Fatunbi and Cal O'Driscoll in Meredith. Image, Ros Kavanagh

Unfolding over a single day, cinematic scenes are neatly paced under Annabelle Comyn's assured direction. Tom Piper's hot-house set, Sarah Jane Shiels' smoke-touched lights, and Philip Stewart's music and sound design adding Ireland's Own mood and texture. If Murray never overtly asserts a moral weight, it looks like mere avoidance. Horrible, privileged people presented in their unapologetic selfishness might be fun, but efforts for connection suggest something meatier was aimed for. Evident in Fiona Bell's stunning performance, operating as Meredith's heart and centre. Playing straight support, Bell is hilariously funny; playing for laughs, you delight in her seriousness. Bell making you understand Noelle's inability to escape from the most insufferable people. Making you feel, sense, laugh and shudder at every sigh, frown, shock or smile. It may be guilt and fear that drives Noelle, but it's love all the same. As for the rest, self is where everything begins and ends, and not in any real interesting ways. Bell shoring up Meredith's shortcomings with an impeccably brilliant performance.