The Walworth Farce

by Enda Walsh

“If there is a bleaker, funnier or more desperate play in Edinburgh this year, I’ll eat my hat.”— Guardian A brilliant new play by the author of Disco Pigs and this year’s winner of the Edinburgh First Fringe Award for Outstanding New Writing.

Genres: Plays, Drama, Irish Literature, College, Theatre, School, Fiction

128 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2008

About the author

Enda Walsh (born 1967) is an Irish playwright born in Dublin and currently living in London. Walsh attended the same secondary school where both Roddy Doyle and Paul Mercier taught. Having written for the Dublin Youth Theatre, he moved to Cork where he wrote Fishy Tales for the Graffiti Theatre Company, followed by Ginger Ale Boy for Corcadorca Theatre Company. His main breakthrough came with the production of his play Disco Pigs in collaboration with director Pat Kiernan of Corcadorca. Since then he moved to London, where he has been particularly prolific over the past five years, bringing his productions to thirteen stage plays, two radio plays and two screenplays.

Winner of the 1997 Stewart Parker and the George Devine Awards, he won the Abbey Theatre Writer in Association Award for 2006. Productions of his plays at the Edinburgh Festival have won four Fringe First Awards, two Critic's Awards and a Herald Archangel Award (2008). His plays, notably Disco Pigs[1], Bedbound, Small Things, Chatroom, New Electric Ballroom[2] and The Walworth Farce, have been translated into more than 20 languages and have had productions throughout Europe and in Australia, New Zealand and the U.S. He has written two radio plays, with Four Big Days in the Life of Dessie Banks for RTÉ winning the I PA Radio Drama Award and The Monotonous Life of Little Miss P for the BBC commended at the Gran Prix Berlin. His commissioned work includes plays for Paines Plough in London, the Druid Theatre in Galway, the Kammerspiele in Munich and the Royal National's Connections Project in London. He wrote the screenplay of the film Disco Pigs and co-wrote the screenplay of Hunger which was directed by Steve McQueen and stars Michael Fassbender as Bobby Sands, the IRA hunger striker who starved himself to death in protest over British rule. Hunger won numerous awards (see below) including the Caméra d'Or award at the Cannes Film Festival, Best Film Award from the Evening Standard British Film Awards 2009 and a nomination for Best British Film at the British Academy Film Awards. He wrote an adaptation of his play Chatroom for a film directed by Hideo Nakata which was selected for the Un Certain Regard section at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. He is currently under commission for two films, an adaptation of the children's story Island of the Aunts by Eva Ibbotson and a biography of Dusty Springfield.

Reviews

[Jonathan Daley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favourite play. Enda Walsh is one of the most exciting voices of his generation and the originality and inventiveness of this piece perfectly encapsulates that. It is amazing.

[Bianca Baguio · Rating 5 out of 5]

read this ravenously in an afternoon. Walsh has a lot to say about the Irish idea of ‘notions’ and the addictive sickeningly sweet practice of dredging up the past over and over again in order to preserve it - presented not only in nuanced ways but also in the ideas about race with Hayley, and the consistent references to women cooking. also plays with the idea of subjectivity of memory, and how easily even one’s personal memory can be rewritten if they are put under enough duress. a confusing read for sure - probably more clearly seen onstage

[Lenka · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious, totally scary and oh so confusing without the acting. All the characters take on different costumes, acting 3 personalities throughout the play. “Sean as Paddy”, “Sean as Peter”... It gets very hard to get the story straight. But in the end, the play within the play is not so important, it is the story around the play. And the ending is just wow. Gave me shivers.

“What are we, Maureen, if we’re not our stories?”

[David Eden · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciate the writing and the skill, I just found the play to be a bit too grim. Perhaps it is better on stage? I have no doubt with skilled actors the play would be funny, in spite of the macabre subject matter.

[Salli · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another one that I am sure is hugely funny when stood up but I don't get it on the page. Also it seems mto have only one message - your parents feed you their idea of history - and little else that was original in any way

[Brooke · Rating 3 out of 5]

What in the actual depths of fresh hell is this play

[Charlie Lee · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't get the buzz around Enda Walsh, I really don't. He should stay away from farce. If you want black humour, go read something by Martin McDonagh instead. He's actually funny.

[Helena Sardinha · Rating 5 out of 5]

“DINNY: (…) A story to be retold, no doubt, and cast in lore. For what are we, Maureen, if we're not our stories?
BLAKE. We're the lost and the lonely.”

[Catherine Margaret · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was good but I know if I read this when I was 16 I would have thought it was a work of pure genius

[Lance · Rating 5 out of 5]

I only saw this play once, but my memories of it are vivid. I was trying to see some more of the theater the Twin Cities had to offer. I was involved in the theater department at my college, building sets, acting, and reading plays. One of my professors urged me to go the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and see this show. While I was not insufferably pretentious, my tastes at this point in time did err on the side of strange for strangeness’s sake. I was—perhaps too self-consciously—nurturing my appreciation for anything that seemed as if it were trying to be misunderstood. Many novels, films, plays and poems that I read during this time in my life I scarcely remember now. Others that I do remember I remember with a twinge of embarrassment. Walworth Farce is something different. While it does have a bizarre opening, it does actually build to a point, and it’s a point well worth making. It’s a story about the versions of events people tell themselves in order to make it palatable, and how they force this version of events on their children. Contrary to many other plays in a similar vein that wallow in subjectivity, harsh reality comes in unexpectedly in the form of a stranger that brings the story crumbling down.

Final Score: 9.0/10

[Adela63 · Rating 5 out of 5]

An honour to see the three Gleesons together at the Olympia!!!

[Steven · Rating 2 out of 5]

What the hell was that? Anarchic, surreal farce.