Dublin Fringe Festival 2024: Julius Caesar Variety Show

Julius Caesar Variety Show by Joy Nesbitt. Image by Eti

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There’s an urgent need for a play about the black lived experience in Ireland, with particular reference to black people’s experiences engaging with the arts. Alas, Julius Caesar Variety Show isn’t it. What it is, is a first year, Drama Soc experiment that misses as often as it hits. Disappointing given it features two rising stars of Irish Theatre; writer and director Joy Nesbitt and performer (but also a writer and director) Ultan Pringle.

Nesbitt’s premise is simple. Three actors, a pianist, and a director from hell are workshopping an upcoming production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. The building they’re in, a once venerated theatre, is about to be knocked down to make way for a Direct Provision Centre. Outside, a hostile, far right mob are loudly protesting, keeping the company trapped inside. Set-up laboriously established, what follows is a series of on the nose, subtle as a brick polemics via dull diatribes and dubious acting exercises, all designed to highlight the changing, and unchanging face of Irish society. Taking a scattergun approach, Julius Caesar Variety Show throws endless theatrical mud hoping something of worth will stick. Unfortunately, very little of worth does.

Take the cliched characters. Three of whom are aligned with once famous actors. Pringle’s director and Daniel Mahon’s fawning Laurence Olivier clearly representing a white, male patriarchy. Even as Loré Adewusi’s Sidney Poitier and Pattie Maguire’s Marlene Dietrich speak to a liberal, pronoun positive women and immigrant cohort. Conrad Jones-Brangan’s musician sitting somewhere on the fence. Dropping more names and cultural references than a wannabe influencer, explorations of power structures between men, women and people of colour in the arts lead to an inevitably predictable ending whilst offering too little of insight on the way. Julius Caesar Variety Show, wanting to be of the moment, evokes the feeling of the moment likely to be long over by the time its endless discussion are done. Its dream of pronoun appropriate behaviour creating a new dawn looking more like power still corrupting even as it changes hands. Nesbitt and co reaching for low hanging fruit, the richer fruit seemingly out of reach. Yet every so often something drops from the higher brances, reminding you of what might have been.

A pity, given Julius Caesar Variety Show is a labour of love that makes some important points. About colourblind casting, white male privilege, how right wing hatred might be a TV soundbite for many, but for black people it’s a viable threat to their lives. But it makes its points in juvenile fashion. ’But this is the Fringe, an opportunity to experiment with new ideas.’ Were this their first outing, you might tend to be more lenient. But Pringle and Nesbitt have a track record of far superior work. Like wearing your communion clothes on your first day of college, Julius Caesar Variety Show doesn’t fit anymore. They’ve outgrown this kind of student level production. One positive takeaway. Pattie Maguire’s passionate performance is a revelation. Like Nesbitt and Pringle, Maguire has the talent to be one of the best. She shows it here. You’ll have to look elsewhere to find Pringle and Nesbitt at their best.

Julius Caesar Variety Show by Joy Nesbitt, runs at The New Theatre until Sept 14 as part of Dublin Fringe Festival 2024

For more information visit The New Theatre or Dublin Fringe Festival 2024.