REVIEW: Gerry and The Peace Process (Samuel Beckett Theatre, Dublin)

For a fine example of what the Fringe can do, look no further than Volta Theatre's contribution this year. The company's hilarious cheap shot of a musical uses vast resources of wit and imagination to over minimal means, delivering as funny a show about the past, present and future of Republicanism as you are likely to see.

Gerry and The Peace Process takes a radical approach to the business of writing a musical, combining the easy influence of the jukebox musical (re-workings of song from everything from Grease to Motzart's Don Giovanni supply the melodies) with barefaced pilfering (that endless resource for re-imagining, The Wizard of Oz gets mugged by Scooby Doo for one of the show's multiple endings). But the result, somehow, is both original and refreshing.

There is a whiff of undergraduate 'revue' to the proceedings, but that seems more a budgetary, rather than an aesthetic issue. Almost all the performances have a distinct dazzle, an intelligence that carries even the show's broadest moments, as Gerry set off on the long road to peace.

There is a parity of esteem when it comes to pillorying, with the surreal uptightness of David Trimbal (Jim Roche) and his dancing Orangemen, nicely contrasted with the equally psychically disturbed Adams (Liam Hourican, winningly giving the Adams we know a new, boyish playfulness) and McGuinness (a cuddly, grey granny of a performance from Sean Duggan) -- those double lives are clearly inflicting a psychic toll.

Roche is back again as Aonghus O'Snódaigh, a veritable Noel Coward of fey, Anglo pretensions, while Emily Kelly offers a ditzy Mary-Lou McDonnell, a neophyte Republican aroused by Gerry speaking "in Gaelic".

The show undeniably tows the acceptable line on Republicanism in the Pale, but despite such conservatism, there are enough good gags and surprises here to make sure the overall effect is wildly entertaining.