Fintan O’Toole’s blistering review of God of Carnage (above, starring Owen Roe, Donna Dent, Maura Tierney and Ardal O’Hanlon) at the Gate elicted a equally blistering letter today from a peeved Ardal (highlights below). We haven’t seen the play and we still haven’t forgiven Fintan for stalling his new political party because he couldn’t find a childminder, As such we will leave this without comment.
“It makes one despair that an esteemed critic and intellectual such as Mr O’Toole should have such a narrow, prescriptive view of what theatre should be; that he should demonstrate such a fear and mistrust of comedy. Laughing, while it is visceral and uncomfortable for the puritan, is not necessarily vulgar.
One would assume that objectivity and a sense of humour are vital to a role as important as the arbiter of taste in Irish cultural life.
What struck me, reading his latest piece of hyperbole, is that Mr O’Toole is the “Veronica” of Irish journalism. As the character herself says in the play “I don’t have a sense of humour and I have no intention of acquiring one”.
Ardal O’Hanlon, Irish Times Letters Page