the banshees of inisherin (w&d martin mcdonagh)

There was a time, twenty years ago, as McDonagh was consolidating his reputation as a playwright on the London stage, that an Irish friend of mine came round to supper and lacerated him as a plastic paddy, who was exploiting his roots. His argument was that McDonagh and his brother, raised in Camberwell, were essentially Londoners cashing in on their heritage by writing London-friendly versions of rural Ireland. Everyone knows that it’s never been a hindrance to be Irish if you want to get ahead in London, and most of our greatest English language playwrights have been Irish, through and through. McDonagh may not be Irish through and through but still succeeded in creating apparently authentic tales from the backwaters, often tales which played on masculine venality and stupidity. The plays were imbued with a dark humour and no little violence and were immensely successful.

Since when the playwright has been reinvented as a film director and whilst the rhythms of Irish speech still permeate his work, even when set in the USA, he has left the country in peace for a while, only to return with the Banshees, a folk tale from an island off the west coast of Ireland, imbued with dark humour and calculated violence. It’s a warped folk tale about a dull man who happens to be nice set against a charismatic man who turns out not to be very nice. There’s plenty of affection and mordant wit in a fable about friendship, masculinity and living on small islands. With some bravura acting and delirious greenery, this feels like the most McDonagh script ever written and it really doesn’t matter wether the inspiration came from Donegal or Camberwell, it’s still deliriously effective.

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Brief ps after a night in a Forest Hill pub, having touched on Camberwell & Brixton on the night of SK’s death and discussing this film with regard to the director’s relationship with his brother, among others. Noting that the tension within the film between the characters played by Farrell and Gleason so neatly reflects the fraternal tensions and silences within the director’s own environment and how the film is a fine example of the capacity of art to act as a safety valve for the travails of the artist.