Brendan Galileo for Europe review: A heartfelt comedy about a union in trouble

An independent candidate runs in the European elections in Fionn Foley's superb comedy. Photo: Cáit Fahey. 

Bewley's Café Theatre, Dublin
★ ★ ★ ★

An opening line can say quite a lot. For instance Brendan Galileo, the independent political candidate in Fionn Foley’s superb comedy, begins his campaign speech with generic words. “Ireland is at a crossroads,” he says.

The roadway metaphor actually paves the way for the plot. Brendan hails from a small Galway town that has been emptied by a new motorway, shutting down its businesses and services. His grandmother’s music school is the only institution left standing. 

The bare stage of director Jeda de Brí’s whip smart production, presented by Bewley’s Café Theate, prefers the detailed smash cuts and surreal effects that possibly only David Doyle’s painstaking lighting can deliver. There’s a hellish trip to the Galway Races where abominable politicians, omnipresent in beams of light and heard in voiceover, bully Brendan into taking their drink orders. When he overhears their plans to demolish his grandmother’s music school to make way for a shiny new plaza, he decides to run in the European elections.

Foley plays a grotesque gallery of characters, from a deranged hip-gyrating employer to an ancient arm-tucked grandmother. His housemate, a washed up singer-songwriter, convinces him that the European Union is the root of the very evil he’s fighting, propping up our corrupt politicians. 

This, Foley’s play well understands, is the devastation wrought by European austerity. But Brendan Galileo for Europe also observes the hyper-real forms that anti-establishment vigour can now take. Attracted to the idea of becoming a celebrity candidate, Brendan applies to represent Ireland in the Eurovision. 

That leads to quite the stinging critique of Ireland’s recent competition. (“I often don’t see what’s right in front of me,” says a slimy executive). The Eurovision greenroom is portrayed as a minimalist-designed dystopia, where all the competitors are planning on dominating the contest with protest songs. This is a Europe where standing out seems harder than ever. 

Conceived with an imagination that could fit a play with a much bigger budget, the only fault of this comedy may be the amount of detail it crams in. Not all the characters, in Foley’s solo performance, may be made flesh. But when Brendan’s grandmother encourages him “You too have your voice,” this cartoon seems to have some humanity. 

In its celebratory finale, what we get turns out to be surprisingly heartfelt, and possibly even reassuring at a time when the union in Europe is in trouble. You can’t be heard if you decide to leave. 


Runs until July 6.