Blue Thunder review: Family secrets and dark demons in small-town Ireland

Blue Thunder

Digital Hub

★★★★☆

It is after hours in small-town Ireland when Brian is jarred out of his contemplative reverie by the arrival of his two adult sons, Dara and Ray, in the back of his taxi. What begins as inebriated “shite talk”, quickly turns into something darker as family secrets and personal demons are exorcised over pungent bags of chips.

Dara, who still lives at home, seeks to re-empower himself by giving his ex-girlfriend “a scare”, declaring that “she doesn’t get to decide how I feel”. When he tries to co-opt his younger brother into this scheme, what began as a fun night out quickly gathers the potential to turn violent. Brian has secrets of his own, and as he struggles to stem the tide of latent resentment brewing between his sons, he struggles to intervene before it’s too late.

Parked out of sight in a city-centre alleyway, the venue for Blue Thunder is a 17-seater minibus. Inside, the hazy darkness provides sufficient cover for some home truths as decades’ worth of secrets find their way to the light. Padraic Walsh relies on familiar Irish theatrical tropes in this production, but here, in this space, what might feel twee in a proscenium staging is energised by the immersive frame. The occasional repetitive dialogue is remedied by the intimacy of the audience-performance relationship, which positions us as culpable voyeurs in the lives of these three men.

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There is a fluidity to the performances of Eoin Geoghegan, Seán Doyle and Gary Lilburn that is simultaneously elegant and grotesque; skilled and contained, they say as much in stillness as they do in chaos.