The Walworth Farce

A remarkable play about what can happen when we become stuck in the stories we tell about our lives. Visceral and tender, The Walworth Farce combines hilarious moments with shocking realism.

It's 11 o'clock in the morning in a council flat on the Walworth Road in London. In two hours' time, as is normal, three Irish men will have consumed six cans of Harp, fifteen crackers with spreadable cheese, ten pink biscuit wafers and one oven-cooked chicken with a strange blue sauce. In two hours' time, as is normal, five people will have been killed.

Enda Walsh's play The Walworth Farce was first performed by Druid Theatre Company at the Town Hall Theatre, Galway, in March 2006, before touring to Cork and Dublin. It was revived at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, in August 2007 as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, winning a Fringe First Award, and received its London premiere at the National Theatre in September 2008.



Enda Walsh is an Irish playwright, born in Dublin. A former recipient of the George Devine Award for Most Promising Playwright and winner of numerous other awards (including four Edinburgh Fringe First awards), his works include Disco Pigs, Misterman, Chatroom and the book for Once: The Musical. He has also written for film, including the screenplay for the 2008 film Hunger, winner of the Camera d'Or at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival.



'An unsettling but exhilarating blend of the hilarious with the horrifying'



'Walsh has outdone himself with a new play more complex, dark and emotionally rich than any of his previous efforts... a theatrical experience that claws at the imagination for days afterwards'



'If there is a bleaker, funnier or more desperate play in Edinburgh this year, I'll eat my hat'



'Brilliant and savage... a mind-blowing combination of Marx Brothers madness and exploded Irish cliché'



'Enda Walsh makes his own distinctive stage music in the fury of his writing talent and the irresistible surge of his blatant theatricality'



'Fast and furious... Enda Walsh's queasy thriller is masterpiece of virtuoso tale-telling'



'Genius... a first-rate farce concealed in a tragedy of Shakespearian proportions... an astoundingly clever piece of writing... as hilarious as it is heartbreaking'



'A fascinating mixture of trauma, fantasy and jet black comedy... testosterone-fuelled, no holds barred mayhem... a macabre delight'



'A twisted classic... disturbing and violent... The play's black humour twists and yawns into darker depths... an affecting allegory for the damage that families do'



'A special piece of theatre... challenging and uncomfortable, but also a pure delight'