Things We’ve Always Wanted to Tell You review: Thought-provoking look at the Irish class system

THINGS WE’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO TELL YOU

Cube, Project Arts Centre
★★★★☆
The physical metaphors are strong in this teasing out of class differences and attitudes in Ireland. The audience is separated from three self-described working class actors – Felicia Olusanya, Jade O'Connor and Neil Watkins – by what seems like a one-way mirror. We can see them, but apparently they cannot see us. Moments when the audience lights go up, and they gaze at us, and when they part the wall to briefly step out, feel significant. Neither a play ("We just got you in on that pretext," says Watkins) nor the billed dinner party, director Scottee creates a carefully choreographed tossing around of ideas and personal experiences, about the complexity of class definitions and acknowledging "you grow up quick when you grow up like us", without an automatic safety net. Thoughtful and thought-provoking, often amusing in upturning preconceptions and taking the mickey out of class assumptions and middle-class privilege, there is righteous anger here too. "Their parents say no [to what their children want] to teach them about the world. Our parents say no because they have to."

[ Dublin Fringe Festival ]