‘Soupers’ were Irish Catholics that were forced to make a stark choice between religion and food during the great Irish Famine. Protestant soup kitchens only allowed Catholics to partake if they agreed to swap sides and join the Protestant religion. It’s the notion of taking sides and belonging that sits at the heart of this magnificent theatrical achievement, one of the big shows at this year’s Traverse Fringe and already selling out.

Directed by Paines Plough’s joint Artistic Director, Katie Posner, the all-female cast make up four generations of a Northern Irish Protestant family in who have come together in Bangor to celebrate Great Gran’s (Julia Dearden) 90th birthday. To say she’s cantankerous would be an understatement as she torments her seemingly implacable daughter, and carer, Gillian (Andrea Irvine), who is a borderline hoarder.

Gilly’s own daughter, a stressed out city executive and borderline alcoholic, living in London but married to an Irish builder, Jenny (Caoimhe Farren), arrives amid a portentous storm with her 14-year-old, politically aware, vegetarian, climate protesting, food-phobic (and, yes, English), powerhouse daughter Muireann (Muireann Ní Fhaogáin).

From the off the atmosphere is tense.  Clearly this is not a perfect family and as it turns out there are many unfortunate secrets to be revealed.

Writer Karis Kelly has created a family gathering of which fellow dark Irish writing behemoths Martin McDonagh and David Ireland would be mightily proud, because dark does not even begin to describe how clever and audacious the script is. Gasps frequently break out from an audience that is gripped by the politics of, not just family life, but Irish life, now, and generationally, all the way back to the Soupers who made their choices that affected the generations that followed them.

The comedy in this beautifully set production (it does feel like a real kitchen) is constant, led by Great Gran who gets all the best potty-mouthed lines, but it gradually turns into pathos as the impact of each woman’s lives come home to violently roost.

It’s a play about the tensions that still exist in Northern Ireland today, insinuated into the gene pool. Tensions that an army of therapists will never dispel.  Tensions that were far from removed by the Good Friday Agreement, before Muireann was even born.  They’ve affected women every bit as much as men, but the women are seldom referenced in our news. Looking away, turning a blind eye, is not an option. It’s time to face facts.

‘Consumed‘ is at Traverse Theatre – Traverse 1 until Sun 24 Aug 2025 at 14:00