POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR: "THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN" and What's Making Us Happy

Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson in another Martin McDonagh joint. (Fox Searchlight)

I was happy to join Bedatri D. Choudhury and host Stephen Thompson on Pop Culture Happy Hour to talk The Banshees of Inisherin, playright-turned-filmmaker Martin McDonagh’s latest feature. I was one of the few defenders of his prior film the highly divisive Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri five years ago, but I was mostly here as a stan for McDonagh’s plays, which are what Inisherin recalls far more than any of his prior movies. My reviews of some of his plays seem to have blinked out of existence, but I reviewed Constellation’s The Lieutenant of Inishmore in 2015, and Keegan’s The Lonesome West and Forum’s The Pillowman, both in 2016. When we got to the What’s Making Me Happy segment, I had several good candidates, but I chose — defaulted, really — the most Irish of them. Because McDonagh.

I went with the Most Irish of my Happy candidates on today's INISHERIN-themed @pchh, but: QT's CINEMA SPECULATION, Bechdel's THE SECRET TO SUPERHUMAN STRENGTH, & on @criterionchannl BLACULA & THE FAN*.

*scenes wherein Lauren Bacall rasps her way through Broadway rehearsals only pic.twitter.com/UHO8blcQ7D

— Chris Klimek (@ctklimek) November 4, 2022

Fargo Fuck Yourself: Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri, reviewed.

Woody Harrelson and Frances McDormand in writer/director Martin McDonagh's finest film.

Up until now, Martin McDonagh's best plays and movies have all been set in rural Ireland, or in an unnamed fictional totalitarian state, or In Bruges. That changes with the superb Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri, his first U.S.-set story that doesn't feel like the work of a tourist. Here's my NPR review.

All that (Inventor of) Jazz: Jelly's Last Jam and The Lonesome West, reviewed.

Jelly's Last Jam, a celebrated but rarely-revived musical biography of seminal jazz artist Jelly Roll Morton.

My reviews of Signature Theatre's new production of George C. Wolfe and Susan Brikenhead's early-90s Jelly Roll Morton bio-musical Jelly's Last Jam, and Keegan Theatre's production of Martin McDonagh's late-90s black comedy The Lonesome West, are in today's Washington City Paper.  Notice is served.

Totalitarian Recall: 1984 and The Pillowman, reviewed.

Jim Jorgensen, Maboud Ebrahimzadeh, and Bradley Foster Smith in The Pillowman (Forum).

My reviews of the British theatre collective Headlong's adaptation of George Orwell's 1984, and Forum Theatre's new staging of Martin McDonagh's The Pillowman, are in today's Washington City Paper.

Here's the trailer the 1984 Michael Radford's version of 1984 that I mention I saw at an impressionable age. I can't imagine ever saying this in any other context, but the Eurythmics soundtrack was not a good idea.

Feline Fatale: The Lieutenant of Inishmore, reviewed.

Megan Dominy and Thomas Keegan get bloody (Constellation Theatre Co.)

I reviewed Constellation Theatre Company's new production of Martin McDonagh's bloody 2001 farce The Lieutenant of Inishmore in today's Washington City Paper. The fine Washington Post story I cite (by David Segal, not long after he'd handed off his gig as the paper's pop music critic to my pal Josh du Lac) about the blood work in the play's U.S. premiere back in 2006 is here.

Crone Warfare: Round House's The Beauty Queen of Leenane, reviewed

Sarah Marshall and Kimberly Gilbert do battle.

My review of Round House Theatre's new production of Martin McDonagh's first play, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, is in today's Washington City Paper.  

(Severed) Hands Across America: Keegan's A Behanding in Spokane and Studio's 4,000 Miles, reviewed.

The Broadway cast of A Behanding in Spokane in 2010: Christopher Walken, Sam Rockwell, Zoe Kazan, Anthony Mackie.​

In this week's Washington City Paper, I review the local premiere of Martin McDonagh's A Behanding in Spokane and reminisce uncomfortably about the show's 2010 Broadway debut, which I saw twice on my way to the realization that I don't like the play very much. I also review Studio Theatre's terrific production of Amy Herzog's sublime 4,000 Miles.