WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2024

Belfast Actually   Debra Hill, Stefan Dunbar, Adam Gillian and Rosie Barry in 'Belfast Actually'.
Photo courtesy of Leesa Harker

Broadly speaking, Leesa Harker's Belfast Actually is a treat – a mixture of charming colour, commendable character acting and cracking comedy that highly pleases the audience at Newtownabbey's Theatre At The Mill. The pleasures, I would say, are not solely in the succession of musical and comic set pieces directed with aplomb by Andrea Montgomery and performed very well indeed by Rosie Barry, Adam Gillian, Stefan Dunbar, Debra Hill, Patrick McBrearty and Christine Clark, but also in the application of a very real and hugely relatable local grounding to the kind of storylines made both famous and - yes - essential by a certain very popular Christmas film.

Love Actually, the film in question, originated at the turn of a century laden with gloom and uncertainty, where a desire for a form of belonging that would bridge the high level of dissonance in the air appeared persistent. For all its discomforting elements, the genuine heart in the film still shines through often enough to punctuate and highlight both temporary delights and hard, lasting truths from the holiday season. Harker goes a step further to indicate, in between the laughs we repeatedly enjoy, just why characterisations within such a formula can raise unease and divisiveness yet be simultaneously winning.

In Belfast Actually, we're introduced to two MLAs on different sides, Molly (Barry) and Billy (Gillian). We also meet a grieving, widowed pair named Joe (Dunbar) and Jill (Hill), and a singer named Gareth (McBrearty) who tells his agent Minnie (Clark) that he wants to reunite with his former love until the breakaway pop hit "Potato Farl Heart" comes along and makes him re-evaluate where his true love actually (see what I did there?) is. It really isn't spoiling much to say that this trio of couplings will find a love connection in the course of the evening. So the fun is in how they find it, on and around a David Craig set mostly comprised of colourful boxes - a structure that hints at the troubling nature of Christmas planning and the joy which may be unveiled from Christmas rewards.
 

Christine Clark and Patrick McBrearty in 'Belfast Actually'.
Photo courtesy of Leesa Harker

That's Belfast Actually for you – a world of seasonal planning, or lack of it, and the little triumphs which can arise. It's also, like Love Actually, a world where knowledge of movies both Christmassy and romantic is a boon to the storylines, with Billy and Molly echoing Nora Ephron's Harry and Sally not only in similar sounds and identical syllables but also in a supposed hatred which potentially fuels a lasting love. There is something to be said for the performative anger and distance that Adam Gillian and Rosie Barry portray and how it becomes a burgeoning chemistry that they, and we, are unable to ignore.

As with certain Christmas presents, you learn to expect the unexpected, and Belfast Actually not only has its share of outlandish but fun musical interludes and audience participation, but also exceptional instances of multiple character playing. The standout here is Debra Hill, doing triple duty as not only Jill but also as a fortune teller and a journalist in a performance of transitional excellence – here is where the skilled dramatic performer commandingly makes her mark as a deft comedienne.

It is Hill's Jill, along with Stefan Dunbar's Joe, to whom Belfast Actually's most poignant moment arguably belongs to – a bond over, of all things, the central love story from Titanic. Thin and clunky that story may be, but its status as a source of uplift is undeniable, and it's where Joe and Jill are able to leave their pasts behind and truly feel like they're soaring, however briefly. It's one of many small interludes among the larger interlude from real life that the play is – even as we know the world doesn't run on love, actually (there we go again!), love is still all around, and what we encounter here leaves us with an enduring memory - a sort of tragicomedy that acts as a kind of panacea for everyone during this increasingly cold and windy December.

Simon Fallaha

Belfast Actually runs at the Theatre At The Mill, Newtownabbey, until Monday December 30. For more information, and tickets, click here.