“I’m not being friends with you anymore if you don’t like it,” I said to the +1 while we were sitting on the bench outside Axis having our dinner*. I’m doing a line in shallow threats at the moment.
Little Gem is the sort of play you could watch again and again. I say that from the vantage point of having seen it for a second time last night. I enjoyed it so much in the Abbey in January that I followed it out to the Axis for its opening night.
Hilda Fay, Anita Reeve and Sarah Greene shone once again as Lorraine, Kay and Amber and it was all the more interesting to see how the play went down in front of a new audience. The Abbey crowd were a mixed bag but Axis last night was host to mostly older ladies who got great laughs out of the Kay character (the grandmother, struggling with an ailing husband and the fact she’s missing getting her bit since he took ill) but sometimes missed the humour of Amber the granddaughter (“like a pair of boxers outta Japan…Henry Street, not the country”).
I’m not sure I can tell you any more convincingly than Darren did in this post that Little Gem is a theatre highlight that everyone should see but I can add to it and say that Axis would be a deadly place to see it…we flew down the M50 in less than an hour, found parking without a hassle and while we were waiting for the show to start we had a good old nosey around and discovered that if you go this Thursday you can have a 3 course meal in the Axis and your theatre ticket for €20. Bargain!
If you don’t make it to Little Gem, keep in mind that the dinner offer is on for a number of upcoming shows - all listed on the website.
*(€5.80 for two double cheeseburgers and two chips in Macaris…and I don’t mean each! Just as well we allowed ourselves far too much time to go from Booterstown to Ballymun, we would have missed the best chips we’ve had in a long time).
Love this play so much. Nice to see them bringing it outside the Peacock.