Templemore review: Unfathomable goings-on in Tipp | Tiger Dublin Fringe

Templemore

The New Theatre

*

Templemore is written in alliterative Hiberno-English that makes comprehension near impossible. It is set in the college for guards in rural Tipperary. Fellow students Eadaoin (Aine Ryan) and Shonagh (Irene Kelleher) head to a local festival with Eadaoin's boyfriend, Geroiad (Mark Griffin). In a quick succession of events, Eadaoin spots Ronan Kennedy, a man with whom she had a relationship when she was 14, until a B&B owner caught her "having sex with her grandfather". Eadaoin instructs her friend Shonagh to bring Ronan to her and away from his little granddaughter. A loud off-stage sex scene ensues, during which the well-meaning but foolish Geroiad returns from a jog to catch them in the act. During the argument that follows, Shonagh remembers that she has abandoned the little granddaughter, who it turns out, has fallen off the festival's Ferris wheel and is now a "puddle". At this point Geroiad takes a phone call in the hope that he won't get the "bench" in the upcoming hurling match. Eadaoin reappears and chastises Geroiad for being annoyed, saying that there's more to love than "burger bath and bed". She then conspires to hijack an ice-cream van to bring her to where she can get a boat to an island with Ronan Kennedy. But it transpires that the granddaughter was in fact a little girl abducted from a group of children Shonagh should've been responsible for. The cluster-tragedy is somewhat resolved when Ronan is found beaten to death with a hurling stick. As Shonagh puts it in one memorable line, "my brain can't gain glue to this at all".