Coconut Raft

Project Cube, Dublin

Coconut Raft

is a tale of two break-outs, one of them a grim and grubby ordeal, the other a modest and grinning success. The first is a prison escape conducted by three unrepentant killers who tunnel their way out of the clink in 1930s Ireland. The other is a cabaret show, largely written as a pastiche of crooning 1950s US idioms, which depicts the same escape as a dinnertime diversion, as if history has passed through a saccharine filter and been transcribed on a cocktail napkin.

There’s huge potential in the idea of truth and its glib distortion for entertainment underlying this short piece by writers and performers – Bryan Quinn, Bobby McGlynn and Seán Carpio – one they may yet deliver on. At present, though, the show feels as roughly assembled and crudely effective as the vessel of its title; made buoyant with knowing music tributes delivered with engaging affection, but so underdeveloped in its narrative structure that it drifts away rudderless.

As the cast pivot roles between luckless cons and cheesy entertainers, Carpio seems most comfortable as bandleader Gustavo Des Balera – a witty portrayal that matches the schmaltz of Bing Crosby to the caddishness of Dean Martin – picking his guitar through lilting Ink Spots-inflected ballads, an effective bluegrass number and a tragic dirge. The counterpointing reality is no less formulaic unfortunately – a pinstripe riff on Oh Brother, Where Art Thouor We're No Angels– one that strips the characters of any compelling truth for the musical to trivialise.

Against the vigour of the songs, prison scenes are played out in silent stretches, furtive glances and angry whispers, where Quinn’s precise physicality lends him a greater stage presence. Each character also receives a “mugshot monologue”, posing with their prisoner number while spilling gnomic insights into their crimes. It’s not quite enough to suggest a harsh reality or complicated psychology and eventually the prison scenes reach for farce. As the correlation between sin and song grows more tenuous, the music serves neither as misrepresentation or ironic comment, just decoration.

The soundtrack has certainly received more attention than the stagecraft (no director would allow the musicians perform behindtheir own band sign, and no director is credited). In one excellent and purely musical sequence, Carpio, an accomplished jazz percussionist, demonstrates the ignored eloquence of the floor tom and it's that breezy accomplishment that lets them just about get away with it. If they could find enough substance to match the inventiveness of their concept, though, this would have been a much greater escape.

Runs until April 3