The critics love Chris O'Dowd's new play. They're wrong

New European

07-05-2025

The Brightening Air, Conor McPherson's first straight play in 12 years, is a bit of a slow-burner, with a fractious family gathering in the kitchen of their dilapidated old farmhouse and resurrecting old feuds.
This seems so familiar an Irish play – think Frank McGuinness's There Came a Gypsy Riding and numerous others – that it seems at first to be almost parodying itself, but gradually the characters begin to make an impression.
Chris O'Dowd is very good as an ageing lothario involved in a relationship with a gormless 19-year-old entertainingly played by Aisling Kearns and Sean McGinley acquits himself well, too, as the blind Bible-bashing old patriarch, accidentally mixing up members of his extended family.
It ambles along quite entertainingly in the first half as it becomes clear who hates who and why, but the second act gets a bit preposterous. The old patriarch announces that he believes the Devil is now in charge of things and he plans to turn the old farmhouse as a retreat for disillusioned members of his church. For good measure, he also miraculously regains his sight and starts to dress like the late Leslie Phillips, in a natty suit and silk cravat.
As the autistic, eccentric Billie, Rosie Sheehy was deferred to by other members of the cast as they took their bows at the end of the first night performance. Apart from one scene where she beat up O'Dowd, she doesn't really dominate the proceedings enough to deserve this honour.
This is the sort of play that my fellow critics always think it's important to make a bit of a fuss about. It's attracted five- and four-star reviews and been called 'the finest play of the year'.
But, in all honesty, at two and a half hours, it's a bit heavy-going and I am not really sure what it has to say for itself beyond the fact that life can be a bit of a bummer. With someone else directing it other than its writer, I suspect it could have been a lot more focused and amusing.