SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2025

Belfast Girls (2025)
Photo: Sean McMahon

On its return to Belfast's Lyric Theatre following a tour around the island of Ireland, Jaki McCarrick's Belfast Girls, this time directed by Rhiann Jeffrey and featuring an almost all-new cast, positively astonishes with the level of novel and pointed power drawn from tremendously weighty material. Building on last year's enduring production, Jeffrey and her team align the already fascinating and affecting with a pronounced and harrowing physicality, presenting a fresh and lively window for a previously told tale. It's another statement for and example of how the passage of time, knowledge and new artistic voices can lend more value to a document while respecting and complementing the strengths of its source.

The show I attend gives me a viewpoint from the very back of the Lyric's Naughton Studio, a more panoramic insight into the staging area than before. It's especially valuable when watching the story of the titular Belfast Girls, Judith (Ebby O'Toole-Acheampong), Ellen (Debra Hill), Sarah (Fiona Keenan O'Brien, who played Ellen in the 2024 run), Molly (Caitriona Williams) and Hanna (Leah Rossiter, the only performer to reprise their role from '24), and their journey from Ireland to Australia in the nineteenth century under the Orphan Emigration Scheme, unveil again. For in this instance, there initially seems to be less magnification on the performers and more on the visually and narratively thematic – though this foregrounded impression is gradually backgrounded as the performers find their way to take centre stage.

Suitcases arranged as steps in one area of Sinead O'Donnell-Carey's impressive set are both functional and illustrative, a prop for a journey that lies ahead and an illustration of memories that have been packed away but will eventually be opened. The structure that comprises the girls' cabin onboard ship is a wooden one, directly spelling out the thinness of life's foundations and the fragility of innocence in the face of the turbulent. Sophie Cassidy's dramatic lighting, at times mellow and at other times thunderous, shows up the wear and tear in the cabin and the varying moods of its inhabitants.

Photo: Sean McMahon

Jeffrey and the cast visibly grasp the bruising toxicity and feelings of contradiction which can arise from a situation where several individuals are packed into a small room over a prolonged period. It is an environment where words and decisions are pressurised by contrasting personalities and backgrounds, where foibles can be despised, then accepted, and then depended upon, and where temporary camaraderie, contextually enforced by purpose and enclosure, can be overestimated as genuine friendship. The realisation that what will happen when the girls reach their destination amounts to the mere continuation of a cycle with a new coat of paint strikes a more melancholy chord this time – the suggestion that "it's always been like this" arguably only carries its full value with the luxury of observance from a distance, which the girls certainly don't have. 

When the recognition of people being "used" hits home, along with the anger over blunted ideals and the valuelessness of efforts exerted to maintain a stable routine, the pain is real and raw, and it's marvellously conveyed in Belfast Girls '25. With this in mind, the value of art, in this case the performance of a play within the play and the reading of books on board ship, is emphasised. In these segments, a fiery and feisty Debra Hill, soon to play Snow White in Brassneck Theatre Company's "People's Panto", really imbues the character of Ellen with arresting and startling line delivery. The small moment where Ellen, who can't read, instead uses her book as a fan speaks volumes about protective projection, the costumed dominating the authentic - an aspect highlighted not just in Ellen but in every one of these Belfast Girls, richly resilient and resonant participants in just one facet of a seemingly never-ending story about who people are and where they wish to be. 

Simon Fallaha

Belfast Girls concludes its current tour at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast, on Saturday November 22. For more information on the play, click here.