Review: FEIS, Òran Mór

Feis is a new play by Anna McGrath, directed by Laila Noble and co-presented with Traverse Theatre. 

Mum Deirdre (Louise Haggarty) loves Irish dancing and is keen to see her teenage daughter succeed where she didn’t quite manage. Aoife (Leah Balmforth) goes along with her mother’s dreams but after a disaster at a championship, she runs away from home.

Fast forward a year and Deirdre is determined to get Aoife back for the world championships and will resort to anything to make that happen. Julie Coombe is excellent as Granny Maura and the dynamic between her and Aoife is well played out.

An awful lot happens in Feis. Times are tough at their Irish dance school, and Deirdre is on some version of OnlyFans for perverts that like to touch themselves on webcams while watching her dance. 

There’s music from Brian James O’Sullivan which is great but not there’s not quite enough of it and he generally seems to be underused. 

There are some great comic moments in Feis but most are predictable and don’t quite land. With the many plot lines running through Feis, a couple seem to fizzle out before the end with no explanation. 

Feis definitely has some interesting ideas and decent performances but needs some fine tuning.

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