HEADWRECKED

[warning: this review contains spoilers and nut traces]

In my recent bout of celeb-spotting, my flatmate Kieran went one up on me. Walking down Bridge Street, Cork, he saw Ed Harris. Unable to resist he went up and tapped him on the shoulder.
"You're Ed Harris." He said.
"Yeah I know." He replied.


There's nothing sexy about smoking, Ed. Haven't you seen that Nico guy?

Ed (I think first-name terms are appropriate here, having met someone who once met him and therefore a special unshakeable bond is thereby forged) was in town for the world premiere (no less) of Neil La Bute's play Wrecks, a one-man play in the form of a monologue dramatising Eddie's (I think I can call him Eddie, considering our newly-formed friendship by association) inner thoughts during his wife's removal.
As Eddie-baby (I think I can call him Eddie-baby, considering how close we've become) sparked up a herbal cigarette whilst reminiscing about his wife, some stupid person behind us - some auld biddy philistine - turns to her auld biddy philistine friend and says in a squeaky Cork pitch: "What about the smoking ban?"
Thankfully she didn't pipe up again, apart from some HRT-induced sighs at Eddie-woo-woo's (I think, after all we've been through I can call him that) most charmingly witty utterances.
But wait - what was that? An elephant had somehow acquired a hoover and was cleaning in the room behind the auditorium, clumsily banging the back-room skirting boards with about as much care and soft-touchedness as Mike Tyson playing tiddly-winks. Well, that's my theory anyway. While the audience ignored the incessant humming and thudding from somewhere outside the theatre, trying not to get some disturbing natural mental picture of whatever they associate with humming and thudding together, like Daniel O' Donnell having it off with a fridge or something, Eddie woo-woo-peach-pie-snuckims (that's my special love-name for him) broke his monologue to address the audience:
"Does anyone else hear that noise?"
Thankfully the elephant finally hoovered up all his empty peanut shells - or broke through the back wall, you know, whatever happened first, and the play could continue. There were no further interruptions, apart from one ambulance sirens a-wailing flying past our theatre, an airplane apparently flying out of control above our heads and a fart flying out from some fellas arse.
Oh yes, the fart I'd almost forgotten about that. Now, I loathe to demean the performance with this incident as one of my biggest memories of the night, but it was bloody hilarious. It was a comedy fart, you see: it manifested itself as a high-pitched squeak that sustained itself for just the right amount of time that you can't pretend it didn't happen and it actually becomes part of the show. Still, it least it'd be better than an SBD. Mind you, the perpretrator could at least blame that on the elephant next door.
The play's oedipal twist has received some mixed reviews. An Article in the Observer said that the revelation is "wholly unconvincing and cheapens" the play, when in actuality the sense of naturalism about the incest makes us question the relationship between morality, the ideal of love and the pursuit of happiness; although the only review that I could think of as I left the theatre was: "So... Ed Harris is a motherf*cker..."
I think I'm entitled to call him that. Us being such great buddies now and all.