The Weir, Harold Pinter Theatre, London, November 2025
Photo by Rich Gilligan
105 – The Weir by Conor McPherson
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The curtain rises on a small rural pub in northwest Ireland. A few of the regulars have dropped in for company and bit of the craic. One of their number introduces a young woman from Dublin who has just moved in nearby. Her presence prompts the men to try to entertain her with stories of local folklore, stories of fairies and ghosts that are the more affecting set against the stormy night outside.
This is the simple premise of Conor McPherson’s breakthrough, internationally successful play, The Weir. The play is a quiet, yet mesmerising piece of drama that consists of nothing more than a handful of people coming together and telling a few stories. Stories which reveal not only personal anxieties, regret and grief on the part of its characters, but which, in the telling, draw us into a collective experience of the mystery of being alive. The Guardian critic Michael Billington included The Weir in his selection of The 101 Greatest Plays, citing Conor McPherson’s “narrative power, his gift for language and his ability to excavate the quiet desperation of the unfulfilled.”
The Weir premiered in a tiny space at the Royal Court Upstairs in July 1997, then transferred to the West End where it ran for two years, winning the 1999 Olivier Award for Best New Play, before opening on Broadway in the same year. It has since been performed all over the world, and as we recorded this episode a new production was playing in London’s West End, directed by the author himself and starring Brendan Gleeson as Jack. I’m delighted to be able to talk with Conor himself about his magical play.
Loyal listeners will recall that Conor joined me on the podcast back in episode 28 when we chatted about his numinous play with music, Girl from the North Country: 028 Girl from the North Country
113 – Arcadia by Tom Stoppard
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Tom Stoppard’s 1993 play, Arcadia, is viewed by many as his finest play, renowned for the breadth of its intellectual interrogations and its formal invention. The play is a structural masterpiece of ideas, as well as a teasing detective story, joyous comedy, and emotionally rich exploration of love and loss.
As we record this episode a wonderful new production of Arcadia is playing at the Duke of York’s theatre in London’s West End, following its acclaimed run at the Old Vic theatre earlier this year. I am delighted to share the challenge and the pleasure of exploring Stoppard’s dazzling drama with the director of the new production, Carrie Cracknell.
112 – Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet
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David Mamet’s modern American classic, Glengarry Glen Ross, is a blistering commentary on the cut-throat reality of the American dream, and its poisonous impact on those who have bought into the myth and machismo of that dream. The play had its world premiere in the small Cottesloe theatre at the National Theatre in London in September 1983, and was first performed in New York the following year, winning the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Mamet also wrote the extended screenplay for the star-studded 1992 film version.
As we recorded this episode a new production of the play was playing at the Old Vic theatre in London, with an all-female cast. This is a particularly provocative idea, because one of the primary themes of this play is masculine identity, and the salesmen in this Chicago office do not hold back in their display of machismo.
To explore Mamet’s unflinching slice of 1980s dog-eat-dog capitalism, I am joined by arts journalist Mark Lawson.
111 – The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui by Bertolt Brecht
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Bertolt Brecht’s ‘gangster spectacle’, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, is both an exuberant and funny piece of theatre, and a chillingly topical political satire. Set in the 1930s Chicago of Al Capone, Brecht presents a parody of the rise of Hitler through the character of the gangster Arturo Ui. The play is a universal cry for vigilance against the rise of unscrupulous, populist leaders who threaten democratic societies and global peace.
As we recorded this episode a new production of the play by the Royal Shakespeare Company was playing in Stratford-upon-Avon, starring Mark Gatiss as the title character.
I am delighted to be joined by both the show’s translator, playwright Stephen Sharkey, and by Brecht scholar, Professor Tom Kuhn, to guide us through Brecht’s political parody.
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