The Tron's socially minded Mayfesto season may have been scaled down for this year's incarnation, but it has continued to throw out an array of theatrical firecrackers regardless.
Many of these have been brand new Irish works by writers and companies little-known or seen in Scotland. So it goes with Gavin Kostick's blistering little solo piece about an on-the-ropes young boxer who finally squares up to his family to prove he can go the distance.
Michael Sheehan plays Dan Coyle, a one-time middleweight contender who blew it at the age of 22. After six years of flabby living he's match-fit once more, whatever his estranged old man might think.
Over the course of a week-long workout before he steps back in the ring we're let into Dan's world, a mix of macho pride, hand-me-down defiance and a rediscovering of his mojo via a steadyish relationship and the kid who came with it. If Dan has been shadow boxing for half a decade, as the play opens he's the comeback kid, ready to take on the world.
Bryan Burroughs's production puts Sheehan through his paces over the course of a relentless 55 minutes that see him swagger, skip and shuffle his way through things with an astonishingly well-honed physical dexterity that allows him to flit between characters in an instant. One minute his hands are on his hips as his judgmental Da', the next they're clasped in front of him as his reconciling partner, Michelle. Through all of this Sheehan manages to deliver every nuance of Kostick's words with clarity, wit and a lightness of touch that suggests, as with Dan, he's punching well above his weight.
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