The action has been transported to the late 1970s or early 1980s, as signalled by a radio playing The Boomtown Rats and Blondie. Some exuberant hairdos and Sin\u00e9ad Cuthbert\u2019s floral and checkered costumes further add to a faintly parodic retro atmosphere. The many shades of blue in Maree Kearns\u2019s spacious kitchen-livingroom set point to a relatively prosperous family that might be suffering from a few \u201cnotions\u201d (a recurring term).<\/p>\n
The chief notion is that the titular \u201cwhiteheaded boy\u201d, Denis, will do the Geoghegan clan proud by becoming a doctor. As he has already twice flunked his exams, Denis\u2019s five neglected siblings retain little confidence in that prospect. But their widowed mother (Clare Barrett<\/a>), at once domineering and clueless, remains determined to continue paying his way.<\/p>\n These tensions simmer as they await the feckless student\u2019s return from Trinity College Dublin. Their accents and a copy of the Limerick Leader situate the action, which runs for two hours and 10 minutes with an interval, somewhere in the Midwest.<\/p>\n Denis\u2019s eldest brother, George (Peter McGann), whose own dutiful competence goes unrewarded, supplies the exasperated voice of reason. Meanwhile, his put-upon sister Kate reluctantly prepares an elaborate tea \u2013 featuring a plastic ham that would not look out of place on The Flintstones. An old maid at 36, she becomes the unlikely heart of this production in a droll performance by Genevieve Hulme-Beaman<\/a>, who combines deadpan melancholy with sublimely odd physical comedy.<\/p>\n With a mop of blond-streaked hair, Denis eventually strolls in full of callow self-assurance, looking rather like Boy George. As played by Teddy Moore, his androgynous persona epitomises this staging\u2019s interpretative innovations, which amplify the theme of frustrated and illicit desire. The words \u201cqueer\u201d and \u201cstraightened\u201d acquire new resonance, and the text has been tweaked in places to lend it a raunchier flavour (while discarding most of its politically nationalist overtones).<\/p>\n That sexualised reinterpretation builds to a climactic encounter between the local bigwig John Duffy (Andrew Bennett) and the Geoghegan family\u2019s Aunt Ellen (Anna Healy<\/a>). Having failed another exam, Denis is now set to be packed off to Canada and compelled to break his engagement to Duffy\u2019s daughter, Delia (Malua N\u00ed Chl\u00e9irigh). Threatening to sue for breach of promise, Duffy extracts both money and Aunt Ellen\u2019s pledge of her own hand in marriage.<\/p>\n There ensues an outburst of pent-up longing on a sofa that is at once risible and vaguely redemptive.<\/p>\n Amid all the bitterness and frustration, sex ultimately delivers a traditional comic resolution. And yet Denis\u2019s siblings remain trapped in celibacy, unable to afford marriages of their own. That portrait of generational inequality \u2013 with exile to Canada lurking in the background \u2013 seems timely.<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/ZZY5QEUQSRG5XKULLELDGPBS5Y.jpg\")
The Whiteheaded Boy: Teddy Moore and Peter McGann. Photograph: Patricio Cassinoni ![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/6WXK5IEYXVFT7JH56XAIOQKFVU.jpg\")
The Whiteheaded Boy: Clare Barrett and Genevieve Hulme-Beaman. Photograph: Patricio Cassinoni ![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/RFEWE5N3TRAXJHATDRTML462RE.jpg\")
The Whiteheaded Boy: Andrew Bennett and Peter McGann. Photograph: Patricio Cassinoni <\/p>\n