Mood swings

One of the hardest things about being a drama critic, at least for me, is that so many plays stubbornly resist categorisation — and Shoot the Crow by the Northern Irish writer Owen McCafferty is a prime example. Is it a comedy or a tragedy? Is it a proper, grown-up piece that wants to be taken seriously or a commercial production designed to put bums on seats? Is it high art or low entertainment?

It starts off as a fairly conventional West End comedy. We’re introduced to two pairs of Irish builders, one pair played by Conleth Hill and James Nesbitt, the other by Packy Lee and Jim Norton. The plot is set in motion when each pair decides to steal an unrecorded shipment of tiles from under the other pair’s noses. None of the four is particularly bright, and only one could be described as young, so the stage is set for a series of farcical scenes, no doubt concluding with all of them ending up with nothing.

Yet no sooner has the play settled into this well-worn groove than it veers off in another direction. Socrates, the character played by James Nesbitt, buttonholes one of his workmates and pours his heart out to him, telling him about his charming but irresponsible father — ‘I worked out that there’s a difference between being a character and having character’ — and his fear that the apple hasn’t fallen very far from the tree. It’s quite a long speech and Nesbitt manages to invest it with such emotional power that it totally alters the trajectory of the play. Suddenly, Shoot the Crow is no longer just a comedy; it’s a meditation on what we make of our lives and the various yardsticks we use to determine whether we’re a success or a failure.