The Pillowman

The Pillowman
Experienced at The Gate Theatre, Dublin, Saturday 23rd August 2025, and written up a month later. Story by Martin McDonagh, directed by Lyndsey Turner
​--
Appallingly amazing. Appalling and brilliant. Best play I’ve ever seen. Worst story ever but excellent. Incredible acting. Amazing acting – so strong. And I enjoyed the Irish accents.
--
Heading out for some food, I was passing the Gate Theatre and popped my head in to see if they had any spare tickets for the evening showing. The Pillowman was advertised, which I thought sounded quite cute. Yes, they did, and it started in 20 minutes, so dinner turned into a cereal bar and in I went. I was sitting at the back right, between two other women who were also there alone.
One was from Poland, who was curious about the Eastern European communist backdrop, which was just a backdrop and barely referenced. She told me this in the break, when I took out my sketchbook and started making notes.
I’d been considering leaving in the break as this cute play turned out to be hideously violent: torture, interrogation, child abuse, and such intense acting that I had my sweater pulled up over my nose as though that would somehow cushion me from the content, whilst leaning forward in my seat. Here is my dog modelling the sweater in a similar pose:

​But as the story rolled on it was so good that the beatings, and the stories within stories, became compelling, curious, genius. And the actors were so strong, so passionate, so BELIEVABLE that there was no way I was going anywhere.

When it ended I was kind of in shock, realising that without any planning, any anticipation, I had just watched the best play I’ve seen in my life. I told them at the counter as I bought my programme, and the guy on the door. My penpal Will, my mum. I left a month before thinking back to it and writing a review, as sometimes I do leave gigs etc. thinking it was the best I’ve ever been to and then realising it was good, but not better than x, y, z.

A month on, I feel revolted by the story but still convinced by the acting. The loops. That they managed a gentle close, despite the protagonist being killed after having killed his brother to spare him a public hanging, as a close to his tortured life in which he killed children in the manner that the protagonist described murders in his stories, due to developmental issues making him think that was what his brother wanted, who was broken by this realisation; so ‘The Comfort Stories’ mainly end up being true, and we then discover one of the worst actually happened to the brothers as a psychological experiment by the cruel parents, whom the protagonist had killed when he realised the screams he imagined as a child were the screams of his brother, who was being given a horrendous upbringing on the other side of the wall, as a comparison to the loving embrace he had grown up in. Somehow the one story his brother had written was sensitive and poetic and wonderful, whereas his own were full of torture and suffering and death.

This all being explained whilst the police interrogating them also play good cop/bad cop, eventually swapping over in reality, and as an audience you don’t know if he is being set up due to being an artist in a totalitarian state, nor whether the murders are real – but it unfurled with clarity. Crisp and vulgar aha moments, shock, understanding and ultimately a huge respect for the cast, the production and the author, as well as some disbelief at the whole thing and having been able to enjoy such a twisted story and laugh at jokes woven throughout.
--
WTAF.
--
Well done everyone: Alexander Bellintani, Freddie Cornally, Ryan Dylan (that was an epic portrayal), Fra Fee (WOW. WOW!!!), Ruby Gill, Aidan McArdle (still hate you), Julian Moore-Cook, Jade O’Connor, Donncha O’Dea, and Ciara O’Sullivan.
--
Thanks Gate Theatre!
​