FRIDAY, APRIL 11, 2025

Our New Girl
Canice Doran as Daniel, Jeanne Nicole Ní Áinle as Annie and Lisa Dwyer Hogg as
Hazel in 'Our New Girl'. Photo: Carrie Davenport

A warm and sunny Belfast night gives way to chilling, astonishing and downright unforgettable depth of life on the Lyric Theatre's Main Stage in Nancy Harris's Our New Girl, which reveals itself to be the perfect fit for Rhiann Jeffrey's prodigious and invaluable directorial sensibilities. I've previously and repeatedly been in admiration, and sometimes in awe, of the distinctive and enduring manner in which Jeffrey unearths and sensitively imprints the passionate humanity in theatrical performances and narratives. And in Harris's work, recently televised in the fine form of The Dry, Jeffrey finds something which undoubtedly meets the definition of "awe" – acting, writing, set design, lighting, costuming, props and more all coming together as something whose vitality and energy simply bursts out at the viewer and effortlessly commands their attention for more than two hours.

Immediately, one's attention is taken by the level of detail in Maree Kearns' set and Sarah Jane Shiels' lighting, which are so astounding they could tell a story by themselves. A beautiful modern-looking kitchen area, with a small, peaceful looking garden on the right, and a slanted glass ceiling through which the pleasant light of day and moody dark of night can shine through, presents the aesthetic of a dwelling that looks like the epitome of perfection. Except the truth, hinted at by the bars which surround the stairs on the left side of the stage, the realistic-looking rainfall that sporadically spatters on the ceiling and the numerous props, is much murkier and ambiguous – as we delve deeper into the lives of Hazel (Lisa Dwyer Hogg), her husband Richard (Mark Huberman), their nanny Annie (Jeanne Nicole Ní Áinle) and their eight-year-old son Daniel (Canice Doran), we'll find a rich distillation and dissection of much of what may be said and done in pursuit of identity protection within a pressurised scenario.

Lisa Dwyer Hogg as Hazel and Mark Huberman as Richard in 'Our New Girl'.
Photo: Carrie Davenport

For Hazel, the pressure is initially being brought about not merely by pregnancy, but also looking after Daniel, a struggling business and Richard being abroad. Annie's arrival seems ideal for lifting the weight off Hazel's shoulders, but in proclaiming, "I don't need a nanny, Annie!" - poetic irony, perhaps? - Hazel's already illustrating that what seems isn't necessarily what is. One person's good intentions may be read as needlessly meddlesome to the other, and this is the first of many chinks in the armour of a perfectionist façade – like a crack in the "nut" that we often grammatically align with the word "hazel". It's humanity in the face of internal and external combustion - a fine fit for the Nancy Harris "zone" of both adjustment and the revelations that follow, which have been pointedly and memorably illustrated in The Dry and her play Journey To X. The letter "x" seems fitting, actually – for an "x" can be an attempted expression of love and a crossroads bursting off in four potentially polarising directions.

And that could be a summation of Our New Girl itself, with Jeffrey, assistant director Debra Hill and the brilliant performances of all four actors on stage going on to memorably and at times frighteningly explicate the complexity of Harris's characters and their effects on one another. The twists and turning points are skilfully dovetailed in an approach that goes beyond mere shock value and into the area of enlightenment, as the hurdles to face in marriage, status, purpose and parenting spring up for challenge and contemplation. Our New Girl's environment is one where the mere spillage of a drink or one honest admission can really turn fragile tranquillity into deadly divisiveness, and in a wholly believable sense – this is theatre as the reality of what one might call protectionist idealism.

Like another "Our", the musical Mutual Friend which became a Neil Hannon masterpiece, Our New Girl is a bold, confounding and extremely rewarding work of strange beauty. It's not just about an impending birth, it feels like a rebirth in the exercise of painful but also powerful performativity, and also a hint at how taking a little time to look and learn is capable of making an enormous difference. The hopelessness, helplessness and struggles of Richard, Hazel, Annie and Daniel against Our New Girl's relentless changing of metaphorical, literal and physical tides is new found wisdom to the audience. It's extraordinary – and in my view, peak work from Harris, Jeffrey and the Lyric Theatre itself.

Simon Fallaha

Our New Girl runs at Belfast's Lyric Theatre until Sunday May 4. For more information, and tickets, click here.