Martin McDonagh is a London-born Irish playwright whose first play The Beauty Queen of Leenane was the 1996 winner of the George Devine Award. Maureen has given him instructions to make himself known, and she, too, comes out in only her underwear. With Cameron Tharma completing the quartet as Pato’s kid brother Ray, it makes for an evening as familiar as it is unsettling. However, it soon becomes clear that Maureen imagined her reunion with Pato; he actually left by taxi without ever seeing Maureen, and is now engaged to a woman with whom he danced at the party.

Pato emerges from the bedroom and prepares breakfast for a shocked Mag, revealing that Maureen insisted he not sneak out. But Mag has other ideas; and her interference sets in motion a train of events that leads inexorably towards the play’s breathtaking conclusion. At the end, after Maureen’s further acute disappointment and exit, the rocking chair of her late mother picks up speed with nobody in it. While Maureen is out, the Folan home is visited by Ray Dooley, a young man, who invites both women to a farewell party for his visiting American uncle.

And any student of Irish drama will be familiar with the theme of emigration, the tension between the romance of rural Ireland and economic survival elsewhere. The play received its world premiere when the Druid Theatre Company [1] opened the production at the Town Hall Theatre, Galway on 1 February 1996. Photograph: Helen Maybanks View image in fullscreen Claustrophobic isolation … Orla Fitzgerald as Maureen in The Beauty Queen of Leenane. In a lonely, run-down cottage in Connemara, Maureen Folan leads an isolated life with Mag, her demanding, manipulative mother. Ray tells Maureen that Pato is engaged to a woman that he’d been dancing with before he met Maureen at his Uncle’s going-away party; Maureen asks Ray to tell Pato that “the beauty queen of Leenane says ‘Goodbye.

It is a shame when it turns from psychodrama to “psycho” drama (the fireside poker is key) but the limits in the narrative are overcome by some moving performances and we are left with the stark image of Maureen, in her mother’s chair, stranded in dismal sameness. Something has to change and in comes Pato, brilliantly acted by Caolan Byrne, potential salvation for Maureen who is needy while he is delightfully handy and could clearly love her.To save face, she tells Mag that she ended her relationship with him and boasts about their intimate encounter.

Craigie’s Mag is ostensibly unassuming and quietly manipulative but lacks the bite that might otherwise set their chemistry alight. The play combines thrilling elements of farce and melodrama with a searing critique on the Irish belief in the sanctity of the family.On the night of Pato's farewell party, Maureen is aware of Pato's plans but assumes he is uninterested in pursuing a relationship. The production transferred to Dublin's Gaiety Theatre where Linehan reprised her role opposite Derbhle Crotty.

Director Liz Stevenson pays careful attention to all this in an assured production that duly gets the Keswick audience crying out in despair at the wrong but inevitable decisions. The Beauty Queen of Leenane, a play by Martin McDonagh, traces the tempestuous relationship of a spinster daughter and her mother to a gruesome end. He reveals that, although he has barely spoken to Maureen in 20 years of acquaintance, he has secretly thought of her as "the beauty queen of Leenane" for a long time. The dramatic tension McDonagh creates is brilliantly sustained, while the sudden twists and turns of the plot elicit genuine gasps of surprise from the audience.Brilliant Ray Dooley, younger brother of Pato, played so well by Marty Breen, was wooed throughout by daytime telly.