REVIEWS

THE HAMILTON SPECTATOR
Howard Platt and Jarlath Conroy are mesmerizing in A Couple of Blaguards.

A Couple of Blaguards is an ingenious and loving recollection by those imaginative playwrights Malachy and Frank McCourt.

In their salty theatre piece, now mesmerizing audiences nightly at Toronto's Winter Garden Theatre, the McCourts stand onstage, larger than life, re-created in ingratiating performances from Jarlath Conroy and Howard Platt. With a table, two chairs, and a pint of Guinness each, these sprightly leprechauns create a dizzy world of recalcitrant Roman Catholic schoolboys, gossiping kerchiefed crones and sniveling self-righteous priests.
It's wonderful entertainment, richly laced with laughter and borne aloft by two outsized, quixotic performances that would charm the socks off any self-respecting leprechaun.

With some large blow-ups of busy New York standing on one side of the Winter Garden stage, and several of lovely Limerick balanced on the other, a whole world of characters are set prancing through appropriate landscapes.

As we follow the McCourts, best known for their memoirs -- Angela's Ashes and A Monk Swimming -- we understand something of the Irishman's need to tell tales. A whole society of dreamers, wastrels and tug-at- your-heart tricksters propel us into a welcoming world of romance.

Conroy and Platt are so good at conveying the hearts and minds of the rascally McCourts that they take what might be a simply pleasant evening of Irish poetry, recollection and song, and turn it into fully fleshed drama.