The Weir review – a riveting return for Conor McPherson’s lonesome barflies

Harold Pinter theatre, London
Almost 30 years on, the Irish playwright’s intimate drama brims with painful memories and comedy – brought to dazzling effect by a flawless cast

Conor McPherson’s rural Irish bar-room drama seeps into your bones. Almost 30 years since its first production, I can still recall the chill that came across Rae Smith’s snug set, hear the humorous sneer in the line “the Harp drinkers” and sense the despair beneath the banter.

McPherson’s aptitude for atmosphere was later deployed in his Bob Dylan musical Girl from the North Country, set during the Great Depression, and will be tested when he evokes the dystopian Panem for an immersive version of The Hunger Games. But first here is The Weir, back for another round, designed again by Smith and this time directed by McPherson in a revival of such exactness it appears effortless.