Kate Kerrigan’s autobiographical one-woman show at Unity in Liverpool has the audience rapt as she shares anecdotes about her life in the media, working at a hair salon in London, and her deep connection to her Irish roots. Playing as part of the Liverpool Irish Festival, Am I Irish Yet? kicked off ten days of celebration as the city hosts theatre, commemorations, and talks celebrating Irish heritage.
My first takeaway of Am I Irish Yet? is that Kate Kerrigan is an amazing woman. Born in London in the sixties, to Irish parents from Ballina, Co. Mayo, Kate is an exceptional role model for any woman who might have been told they aren’t qualified enough. Over the course of ninety minutes, we get snippets of Kate’s life and the important characters that shaped her, all a brilliantly drawn picture of a life well-lived. While the piece always harks back to the importance of Irish identity in Kate’s life, I must say I found the hammering home of Irishness the least engaging facet of an otherwise well-told story. Perhaps it’s because I am also an Irish person, with a silly unpronounceable Irish surname, that I found the jokes about the Irish language, told to a (presumably) English audience a little distasteful, but even ignoring the terrible Irish accents, it seemed like a story so fixated on identity seemed to miss the mark. Where Kate doesn’t feel like her London accent accurately represents her and wishes the “mushamammy” twang came more naturally, the loyalty to the Irish people often boils down to a pro- or anti-IRA sentiment. As a representative of the Liverpool Irish Festival who introduced the piece reminded us, there is much about the Irish people and Irish history that one must look and think critically on, whether it be the events of the 90s, or this past summer, where anti-immigration rallies ramped up heavily.
The piece isn’t inherently political, but it is difficult not to read into the political aspects. While the staging and direction could have been tighter, I do encourage you to make the trip to Kerrigan’s show if even just for the wonderfully autobiographical aspects of growing up in London in the 60s.
Am I Irish Yet? is on an English tour, continuing in Sheffield on October 20th. For more details, check https://circus250.com/shows/am-i-irish-yet
Reviewer: Anna Ní Dhúill
Reviewed: 16th October 2024
North West End UK Rating: