Eugene Duffy and
his son Jim live in a little Irish town south of Dublin. Eugene has retired from his small business, a
hardware shop, which is now run by Jim (as independently as he can; his Da took
an age before he stopped making ‘just passing by’ drop-ins). Eugene’s pretty but bored wife Una left when
their kids – there’s an elder daughter, Eleanor – were just teenagers and
hasn’t been in contact since, leaving, she said, for a more exciting life with
another man who wasn’t a stick-in-the-mud like Eugene and, as this was not her
first infidelity, it was time for Eugene and the kids to bite the bullet and
face life without her.
Eugene honestly concedes that his life has always been as
predictable as Ireland’s rainfall; he
has always had the same job, lived in the same house – but it gradually occurs
to him that son Jim is following in his safe but boring footsteps: living in the same upstairs bedroom he
occupied as a child; going to the same
school; and coming into the family business as a matter of course. All meant to be! But where’s the romance? Eleanor has married Adrian, whom Eugene detests, eventually producing
Miles, a strange little boy who likes biting people (Eugene’s thigh, once
attacked, still tingles at the thought), but Jim is nearing forty and, as far
as Eugene can deduce, has no girlfriend on the horizon. At all. Could he be gay?
He could not! Was
the outraged response after a timid enquiry, thereafter giving life to a
nascent plan cooked up with Eugene’s friend Frank to get Jim out into the
dating world – which is not large in their little town: Salsa lessons at the church hall will have to
do for a start; Eugene even bravely
attempts the Salsa in an attempt to show
some male bonding, sadly his two left feet let him down – BUT – something
happens: Jim starts caring more about
his appearance. He goes out – ‘with the
lads’ – more often. Something’s
happening! Then Eleanor makes an
announcement: she has been in contact
with her mother on Facebook: after
twenty-five years of silence Mam is coming to see them ‘just for a few days’.
Damien Owens has made much out of little – the ‘little’
being the well-worn grooves that many people travel throughout their lives in
an attempt not to experience any more hurt than they can endure, and ‘much’
being his wonderfully comic and humane characterisations of ordinary people
doing just that: trying not to be hurt –
and being laugh-out-loud funny along the way.
SIX STARS.
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