Dancing at Lughnasa, Octagon Theatre, Bolton.

Runs until October 5. PAGANISM survived in Catholic Ireland in the 1930s, according to this award-winning play by Brian Friel. Indeed normal, church-going people might occasionally find themselves uncomfortably on the borderline between Christianity and paganism. The family of five, single women - one of them, God save us, a single parent - dance in their own Christian Donegal home in a tribal way and are tempted to join the pagan dancers at the autumnal festival of Lughnasa.

But the eldest of them, Kate (Mary Cunningham), has the strength of Christian character to prevent them from crossing the line.

All five sisters have been well chosen, and gave moving performances, showing their love for each other in different subtly-crafted ways.

Pauline Shanahan is superbly gauche as the mentally-challenged Rose, yet there is still a semblance of human dignity about the character which Shannon manages to portray very well. Niamh Daly, who plays Chris, the mother of Michael, has a Dublin background and this shows in the ease of her speech. The accents of the rest are a little unstable and some words are lost to the audience, but the feeling of a time and place in Ireland never disappears.

Michael as a young boy is not seen, but Michael the man, played by the former Brookside actor Clive Moore, is both the narrator and the voice of himself when young.

Moore plays the part with a charming, laid-back Irishness to which his Celtic appearance adds credence.

But is his character anything more than an Irish version of John-boy Walton dispensing home-spun philosophy, and has the play any deeper message than that to be found in the Waltons?

If it has, it is not clear. I suggest that is simply a peep through the keyhole at Irish rural life of a certain period by an observer of keen perception, and on that level it succeeds.

It may be a theatrical profanity to admit this, but I enjoyed the Octagon's production better than the Abbey Theatre's UK-touring version of 1992. I think the intimacy of the Octagon is better suited to the play, than the large theatre where I saw it previously. Francesca Ryan was a splendid Maggie, the sister whose down-to-earth sanity and cheerfulness are perceived as the ingredients that keep the family on an even keel through trying time.

The playwright does not develop the character of Agnes in the way he does those of the other sisters, but Susan Gardner makes the most of the part.

Ken Bradshaw is excellent as Michael's wayward Welsh father, Gerry, and he dances with considerable style.

There is another storyline involving brother, Jack, who returns in mysterious circumstances from missionary work among lepers in Africa. Geoffrey Banks was endearing in the part of the priest whose mission to the Africans had been subverted by his enjoyment of a tribal way of life that is definitely not Christian.

If, after all, the play has a message, perhaps it is that the Irish - or maybe all of us- have secret yearning for the pagan and primitive.

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