Outside, it’s gusting, the wind has picked up and outside isn’t the most welcoming. Inside the pub, it’s warm and welcoming, a proper locals pub where you can serve yourself and just put your money in the till. Not much happens, a few locals drink and chat. That’s The Weir, that’s Conor McPherson’s play.
It is a slow-burn, more about mood than plot, and it’s the beauty of the writing and the skill of the cast which envelops us, brings us along to the bar as we sit and share the evening. In this case, to welcome newcomer Valerie, a blow-in to the small village. As the drinks flow, the men swap local history, leading into ghost stories which get darker and darker. Valerie reveals her own story, moving the mood from mostly light banter to raw confession. The evening becomes less about the supernatural, less tales of faeries and ghosts, and more about loneliness, regret, and the fragile connections that we all make in order to carry on.
Brendan Gleeson makes his West End debut, and he brings everything you’d expect. He has a tremendous presence, holding the pub around him there and the audience in the palm of his hand. It’s not a one-man show; he is joined by a rock-solid cast. Tom Vaughan-Lawlor brings swagger – the local boy done well but so desperate to be one of the boys to be respected and accepted. Seán McGinley has an effortless comic touch, Owen McDonnell holds all in the pub together, quietly just there and reliable and solid and kind. Finally, among the four locals, Kate Phillips quietly steals scenes as Valerie with her own reasons for coming to this small village in the middle of nowhere.
Rae Smith’s set design for the pub is so detailed you can almost smell the wood polish and stale beer. Gregory Clarke’s sound design has the wind rattle outside the window, the storm out. Max Henderson’s lighting design is and but powerful – warm and bright when the pub and the conversation feel safe, but dimming, turning the corners into shadows as the stories turn darker and darker. By the time Valerie speaks, it feels like candlelight closing in on her (and on us), as if the pub itself was holding focus on her words.
The tension lies in the pauses, in everything that is unsaid, as the stories are told and the jokes become bittersweet. There is still pub banter and many laughs, but this isn’t a comedy and if anything, some of the jokes make the sadness and the loneliness make it more poignant. The atmosphere is thick enough to cut with a butter knife.
It’s a profoundly moving evening. Conor McPherson talks in the programme about how, when debuted almost 30 years ago, it was accepted and performed as his literal first draft. He submitted it expecting feedback and to work on it, but it went out like that word for word. I wasn’t lucky enough to see it back then, but this revival shows us why The Weir is a modern classic: simple, haunting, and profoundly human.
The Weir plays at the Harold Pinter Theatre until 6th December. https://theweirplay.com/
Reviewer: Dave Smith
Reviewed: 23rd September 2025
North West End UK Rating: