Theatre The Home Place The writing is, as you might expect from the author of Dancing at Lughnasa and Translations, often gorgeous; the set luminous; and the acting - bar an over-mannered, if moving, Tom Courtenay - admirable. Yet Brian Friel's new play, The Home Place, at the Comedy, ultimately disappoints. Though it flickers, beautifully, with tenderness and generosity of spirit, its plot line feels research-driven, shoehorned into dramatic use rather than organically derived, and its melancholy more striving for Chekhov than Chekhovian in accomplishment. Still, there's much to savour in ...
