Lourdes gets a Vegas glow-up at Dublin theatre festival, where canvases are slashed
A musical about a drama group’s pilgrimage and reflections on activist art join an intriguing show about lost languages In a Dublin theatre festival programme tackling heavy themes of racism, conflict and prejudice, Lourdes! The Musical ( ★★★★☆ ) promises something effervescent.
Xnthony Ltd , the creators of Oliver Cromwell Is Really Very Sorry , have turned their lightly quizzical gaze to the French pilgrimage town – “a holy Blackpool, a divine Las Vegas” and a site of hope or desperation for five unlikely travelling companions.
Back in his home village in “Countryland”, in 2008, following a diagnosis of HIV that punctures his dreams of Los Angeles, singer-songwriter Matthew (Riain Cash) lends his star power to a parish drama group taking a musical about Saint Bernadette to Lourdes.
Interweaving this show-within-a-show and the pilgrimage strands, Xnthony’s lyrics and Matthew Floyd Jones’s score blend pop, club beats and soulful ballads.
Directed by Sarah Meadows, the supercharged ensemble joining Cash as, variously, a droll priest (Iestyn Arwel), a terminally ill mother and her transgender daughter (Nichola MacEvilly and Danielle James) and an eager tour manager (Molly Lynch) carry the music’s tonal shifts effortlessly.
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