Review: MOJO MICKYBO, Union Theatre

Mojo and Mickybo are tweenagers with the kind of intense friendship that feels like it will last forever. They build huts in the woods, conduct a feud with another pair of likely lads and bunk into the flicks. Captivated by Butch and Sundance, they're soon their very own buddy movie cowboys, jumping off pretend cliffs, playing with pretend guns.

But not all the guns are pretend in Belfast in 1970 and the innocuous references to living 'up the road' and 'over the bridge' carry a more sinister meaning as sectarian violence swirls around the boys who just wanna have fun.

Owen McCafferty's play is twice as old as Mojo and Mickybo themselves now, but it has a heightened relevance after the success of Sir Ken's Belfast, another childseye view of a city toppling into civil war. The writing has some of that film's evocation of working class life, but it probably owes more to Roddy Doyle's novels set across the border in Dublin, with the quickfire sweary dialogue, the chaotic avalanche of experiences and the comedy found in kids' simple pleasures.

Terry Keeley and Michael Condron excel in capturing the looks and mannerisms of the lads out for the their (pre-)teenage kicks and really cash in on the comic cuts when they transform into a variety of adults, from the women sitting on their steps outside their terraced houses, to the officious "torch lady" in the cinema, to the parents who have problems of their own, personal and social. Authentic as it may be to play Mojo and Mickybo loud (excited boys are), the unforgiving hard surfaces of the venue does make for a bit of an ear-bleeding hour or so, and we do lose some rapid conversation as sheer volume, speed and accent drown the words.

Lisa May directs with pace and maxes out the humour in the script, but 23 years on from its first outing, there is a question about whether the play is doing enough with its heavily foreshadowed pathos largely compressed into its last ten minutes or so. Belfast has always been a cauldron of joy and pain and we leave it abruptly, not short-changed exactly, but wanting to know more about the ordinary lads who would walk and then, later, not walk across a bridge, both literal and metaphorical.

Mojo Mickybo is at the Union Theatre until 2 April and at The MAC, Belfast from 6 to 10 April