The play is set in Kerry, the most westerly county of the Republic, in a small, weather beaten, farming community which has been taken over by a Hollywood film crew shooting a star-studded, historical epic. The whole story is seen through the eyes of two of the extras on the set, Charlie and Jake. Charlie is a pie-eyed optimist living in a tent, who has drifted down from Northern Ireland and Jake is a local man, just back home from New York, cynical and disillusioned. Herded around by the stressed production crew, these ‘background bog men’ form an unlikely friendship. Tensions with the production team mount following a tragic incident involving a local lad who is thrown out of his local pub by the leading lady’s minder. This culminates in a rebellion against the film company. It is certainly a satire about American cultural imperialism but what makes it so special is that the two actors playing Charlie and Jake also play all the other 13 characters. As they narrate the story, they paint a picture of the whole world around them; the savvy old locals, the aimless youths, the hardened female lead, her entitled acolytes and even the bemused cows munching grass in the fields around them.
Together, the two actors portray what Jones described as the ‘whole disintegration of rural Ireland.’ But make no mistake, this is not heavy political dogma. Think Father Ted rather than Sean O’Casey. This is convivial and engaging storytelling that is both hilarious and heart breaking, a bittersweet masterpiece.