Dublin Fringe Festival 2024: Chicken

Eva O'Connor in Chicken. Image Paul Baker and Hildegard Ryan

****

Aardman Animations get the live action treatment in Eva O’Connor and Hildegard Ryan’s award winning Chicken. A darling of the Edinburgh Fringe, this hugely inventive piece of storytelling theatre is surpassed only by the manner of its telling. Charting Don Murphy’s rise from mysterious birth to Oscar stardom via Michael Fassbender’s appendage. Followed by Don’s plummet from grace courtesy of Colin Farrell’s bad boy influence. Too much Special K and not enough self-respect finds Don shacking up with a performance artist. The first step to recovery as he returns home to star in Martin McDonagh’s latest blockbuster. Only to discover the glaring secret of his mysterious birth resulting in a rousing call to arms. Less Braveheart so much as Wallace and Gromit, Chicken is an absurd delight speaking to a plethora of themes. Made anthropomorphically marvellous by the fact Don is an actual chicken.

Or rooster to be exact. One big, Irish cock. O’Connor’s one woman monologue playing with every chicken pun, and then some, as the aspiring ack-tor tells his story. A story funny, absurd and inventive, if not for all of the time. Relying on its magnificent visuals to carry the day which, though they do, come close to being a one trick pony. But oh, what a pony. O’Connor strutting and fretting her hour upon the stage in a superlative chicken costume. So convincing you begin to believe O’Connor must have chicken DNA in there somewhere. Cluckings, flicks, pecks and head bobs executed in the round under delicate lights delivered with unadulterated brilliance. O’Connor exuding a bold, confident authority, physically and vocally, and an undeniable presence that commands the space and everything and everyone in it. Even her je na sais quoi has je na sais quoi. Physically, vocally, O’Connor operates at a whole other level and is simply glorious. Chicken suggesting she might well be the next big, international breakthrough. Chicken delivering one of the outstanding performances of this years Dublin Fringe.

Chicken by Eva O’Connor and Hildegard Ryan, presented by Sunday’s Child, runs at The Project Arts Centre until Sept 15 as part of Dublin Fringe Festival 2024

For more information visit Project Arts Centre or Dublin Fringe Festival 2024.