Review: STONES IN HIS POCKETS, Salisbury Playhouse

The Irish are renowned for good story telling. From James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, Samuel Beckett and George Bernard Shaw, to simply a good yarn over a pint in a pub. In a long line of cracking good tales, you couldn't get much better than the new immersive revival of Marie Jones' tragi-comedy Stones in His Pockets.

The clever two-hander, where two inexhaustible actors (superb Gerard McCabe and Shaun Blaney) play 15 different roles in dazzlingly quick switches from one to another, is reinvigorated with the addition of audio-visual film clips and enhanced lighting and sound.

Randomly adding gimmicky audio-visual can sometimes detract from a production, but in this instance, it adds to the plot following two hapless extras in a Hollywood film on location in rural Ireland.

Film clips cast on canvas screens make sense as they operate as playbacks for the group of extras. There are also two hilarious trailers – one of the Hollywood film, The Quiet Valley, and a surprise (watch for it) at the end of the evening. The added technological dimension also highlights the collision of two different worlds: locals desperately trying to survive off the land (think cows and more cows) up against the glitz and glamour of Tinseltown offering a preposterously, made-up Ireland.

Originally performed at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast in 1996 on a basic set, this new version from director Matthew McElhinney (the son of Jones and original director Ian McElhinney) retains much of the simplicity of its Olivier Award-winning predecessor (best new comedy and actor). But it brings us up-to-date with references to things like Alexa and Amazon Prime, and shows the impact of AI and screens on us all.

McCabe is endearingly positive as Charlie, a failed DVD rental shop owner who's desperate to get his script read by a powerful creative; while Blaney captures our hearts as embittered Jake who didn't make it in America and hopes his brief stint as an extra might lead to something better.

The duo come across all manner of folk in the movie-making industry, from sexy, leading lady (hilariously portrayed by McCabe), ambitious assistant, scary bodyguard, old extra who bangs on about being in a John Wayne film back in the day, and a patronising English director more worried about cashflow than the sensitivities of the locals wanting time off to go to a funeral.

Highlights for me were the little touches, such as designer Gregor Donnelly's ingenuous use of racks of clothes to represent other extras, Blaney morphing into assistant Ashley by hanging a jacket off his arms in a rakish fashion, deliciously clichéd Irish music and spot on sound effects from sound designer Harry Smith, a mimed coffee scene when the leading lady tries to seduce Jake in her Winnebago, and a side-splitting but also viciously angry Irish dance scene involving all manner of hackneyed tropes like jumping over brooms and playing the spoons.

There's also a beautiful flashback when Jake recalls skipping stones with his cousin Sean where they were boys, which contrasts with Sean's pockets filled with stones in a catastrophic twist just before the interval.

Jones's writing has the incredible ability to move from the humorous to despairing in a milli-second, marking this play as one of the best modern works you'll see in a theatre today.

Its tragicomedy genius is summed up by the director's line to our two extras wanting to find a way to escape by telling their own story. "People don't go to the movies to get depressed; that's what the theatre is for."

Stones in His Pockets runs at Salisbury Playhouse until October 19, then moves on to The Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham, and The Octagon Theatre, Bolton, before embarking on a wider tour in 2025.

Photo credits: Alex Tabrizi

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