Brendan Gleeson marks his West End debut at age 70 in Conor McPherson's The Weir at the Harold Pinter Theatre, delivering a performance that critics are calling a standout in a revival of the Irish classic.
Set in 1996 on the west coast of Ireland, The Weir unfolds in a remote pub where three local men and the barman trade ghost stories on a wet, windy night as a Dublin-born woman, Valerie, arrives in their corner of the sticks. Gleeson portrays Jack, a craggy, looming presence who dominates the storytelling with a ghoulish tale about a so-called “fairy road” that threads through the visitors’ new home. The production pairs Gleeson with Owen McDonnell as the barman Brendan, Tom Vaughan-Lawlor as Finbar, and Sean McGinley as Jim, a quietly atmospheric presence who orders shots of whisky and weighs in with a graveyard yarn of his own. Kate Phillips plays Valerie, whose arrival sharply alters the mood and direction of the evening.
The Weir is a shift by McPherson from the stage’s modern voice to a mythic, intimate Irish blues, and the revival comes with a history: the play premiered in 1997 and has since endured as a staple of Irish storytelling, celebrated for its lyrical language and mood as much as its suspense. In this staging, Gleeson enters a role once associated with Brian Cox, bringing a country-giant aura to a story that leans on warmth, humor, and a sense of communal superstition.
Gleeson’s physical presence is a defining feature of the performance. Dressed in a subsiding black suit with a white shirt, he embodies a rural colossus whose voice can be both lilting and forceful, even when diction occasionally drifts toward inaudibility. The actor’s work anchors the evening, and his charisma helps to unlock the play’s generous, if sometimes unsettling, heart. The other principals—McDonnell as the steady barman, Vaughan-Lawlor as the sly Finbar, and McGinley as Jim—offer counterweights that keep the storytelling buoyant while maintaining the haunting mood that McPherson seeks.
The Weir, written with a poet’s sense of rhythm, captures a culture at the edge of change, haunted by a past that lingers in the pub’s smoke and sound. Critics have noted the show’s warmth and humor as a crucial counterpoint to its darker, more unsettling moments, and the audience’s response has reinforced the idea that the work remains resonant nearly three decades after its premiere. The production’s use of memory and myth serves as a lens on Ireland’s social shifts in the 1990s, offering both nostalgia and a quiet, uncomfortable glimpse into how legends shape everyday life.
Overall, the West End run marks a milestone for Gleeson, who longtime film fans know as Harry Potter’s Mad-Eye Moody and who now makes a celebrated foray onto London’s stage. Observers describe the performance as a confident, magnetic turn that confirms Gleeson as a versatile stage actor capable of carrying a script that relies as much on mood and cadence as on plot. In the eyes of critics, this revival of The Weir stands as a reminder of Conor McPherson’s gift for weaving small-town speech into a larger, almost mythic atmosphere, and of Gleeson’s ability to inhabit that mood with authority. The production runs at the Harold Pinter Theatre, inviting audiences to listen closely to a story that lingers long after the last line is spoken.