BLUE THUNDER
WINNER: VAULT FESTIVAL INNOVATION AWARD 2019
NOMINATED: Best Ensemble at Dublin Fringe Awards 2023
★★★★★ Fringe Biscuit
★★★★ The Irish Times
★★★★ Feeling Good, Chris McCormack
One of Image Magazine’s unmissable Dublin Fringe shows
One of The Irish Times Dublin Fringe shows to catch
Radio Pick of the Week. The Times (for BBC Radio 4 adaptation)
Audio Pick of the Day. The Guardian (for BBC Radio 4 adaptation)
“Rare, true, profound. Blue Thunder takes us into the maze of fears of three men. Full of pathos, amazement and excitement.” Framed magazine
“Superb script.” Fringe Biscuit Magazine
“It has a totally authentic feel. Grab a ticket for this wonderful ride.” Irish Independent
“Padraic Walsh’s engrossing miniature…the audience is eyeball to eyeball with the actors. It requires absolutely spot on performances, not a blink out of place, and it delivers just that.” Lyn Gardner, Stagedoor
“Sharply written, perfectly directed and brilliantly acted.” Irish Independent
“There is fluidity to the performances…that is simultaneously elegant and grotesque; skilled and contained. They say as much in stillness as they do in chaos.” The Irish Times
“It’s an impressive and at times powerful piece of theatre.” No More Workhorse
“The fourth character is the minibus. This works spectacularly well as a mini-theatre.” Irish Independent
“Walsh’s script becomes a compelling knot of irreconcilable grievances.” Feeling Good, Chris McCormack
“Although it takes place in real time in a single location, the play develops with expert dramaturgy, accentuated by the lively rhythms of Walsh’s words.” La Repubblica
“On stage you will find the characters and you will not see the actors, because of the intensity and rhythm of the dialogue. Walsh immediately makes us understand from these details the poverty, a single salary, the disintegration of the couple, the choice to have children by religious faith, alcohol and loneliness despite being part of a large family.” Il Terzo News
“A simple setting, with complex meaning. Three men, three solitudes and one common denominator: love. Blue Thunder shows how loneliness is a universal feeling, how differences can lead to empty and how silences can turn into pain.” Quarta Parete Roma
“A really beautiful and exciting show. There is a great complexity to each character. Untold stories, unspoken engagements, immobility, a desire for change induced by others: these are just some of the themes in Blue Thunder, which investigates them without superficiality, probing the souls of three men.” Sarascrive.com
“A great show. The van is the confessional where guilt is admitted and accusations are launched, pieces of truth are told and rewired, where one gets naked as in a locker room: the conflict is generational and all male.” Accredditati
“Highly engaging. It is easy to forget about the actors and to identify with the characters.” Shockwave magazine
FOXES
“Intensely written, the dialogue fast cutting, disclosing not through the words themselves but through what was lying behind them, dormant till now but suddenly aflame.” The Spectator
“A cracking little psychodrama.” Sarah Hemming, Financial Times