FRIDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2025
The Boy Who Kicked Pigs
Production Photo: Carrie Davenport
Bruiser Theatre Company's production of The Boy Who Kicked Pigs at Belfast's MAC is the kind of show and idea that immediately inspires highly curious intrigue before the event has even begun, and in a very good way. As we theatre lovers might just recall, the company do seem to have a history with pigs, in a very small sense – memories of the bizarre and brilliant "Piggershop Triplet" from artistic director Lisa May's version of The Night Before Christmas, staged in this very complex, still linger. So, if you'll forgive me for a moment, perhaps you can't blame both director May and Bruiser for wanting to ham it up on stage to bring home the bacon with hog wild concepts.
Well, rest assured that this play, adapted from a novel by none other than Fourth Doctor Tom Baker, is full of "wildness", with everything outstandingly accomplished in a slim seventy minutes. Entirely in line with the memorable energy and eccentricity which Baker tended to align with his take on the famous Time Lord, The Boy Who Kicked Pigs blends vivid levels of visual imagination with extremely lively performance art and prose both melodramatic and witty. May is once again challenging the boundaries of traditional theatre and clearly relishing in doing so - and we, too, relish what we see, in the same way the talented cast and crew visibly relish in what they do.
The premise of thirteen-year-old Robert Caligari (Gerard Headley) a genuinely horrible piece of work who has run into more than just a little trouble for kicking his sister Nerys (Eleanor Shannon)'s precious piggy bank, Trevor, out of the window, is the catalyst and source for a plot to spread in numerous directions and invite all four actors involved to portray multiple characters familiar in both the real world - like policemen, lifeguards, Radio DJs and journalists - and the fantasy world - like talking rats - but to permeate them with a level of unforgettable and novel cleverness. It's about the "how", "why" and "where" as much as the "what", "when" and "who", a tone that smartly spreads into Garth McConaghie's sound, James McFetridge's lighting, Lynda Thompson-Spack's costuming and Stuart Marshall's set.
Production Photo: Carrie Davenport
The Boy Who Kicked Pigs is what you might call a very "spaced out" story where communication isn't just prominent, but crucial. Sometimes, we hear expectedly enjoyable musical interludes. And at other times, we see experienced reporters dressed in really monochromatic clothing, with ghostly faces – a sign, maybe, of the strain and repetition they face on the job, in the situation – along with what seem to be clothes hangers, transmitters and a mini "space station" on the set itself. Terms such as "hung out to dry", "wires crossed" and "airing dirty laundry in public" can't help but come to mind here, and such sayings find expressive relevance in the narrative in unimaginably deranged and fulfilling ways.
We have, in this brief but brilliant play, reality and fantasy in all its crazy complications, matched by impressive and intensely committed acting. Jack Watson and Mary McGurk continue to astound in how they challenge themselves to meet the demands of increasingly interesting and idiosyncratic role play, inspiring fellow performers Gerard Headley and Eleanor Shannon to match their performance levels in this marvellously macabre concoction, ideally timed for Hallowe'en. Hyperactive, hilarious and terrifying in wordplay, physicality and concept, The Boy Who Kicked Pigs is eye-poppingly good – it is, without question, another triumph for Bruiser.
Simon Fallaha
The Boy Who Kicked Pigs runs in the upstairs theatre at Belfast's MAC until Saturday October 18. For more information, and tickets, click here.