Stories from James Joyce’s Dubliners still shine like gems, more than a century on

Counterparts & A Little Cloud at Bewley’s Café Theatre, Dublin until July 20

Liam Hourican and Jim Roche in Counterparts at Bewley's Cefé Theatre

Katy Hayes

Good theatre is often about breaking new ground, but there is also something to be said for ­polishing gems. And that is the case here with this delightful pair of stories from James Joyce’s Dubliners; both are beautifully dramatised and served up as a lunchtime treat. The show is adapted, directed and performed by Jim Roche and Liam Hourican.

First we get A Little Cloud, performed by a versatile Hourican. He captures the delicate pretensions of a Dublin married man, Thomas Chandler, toiling away in the King’s Inns but harbouring secret writerly ambitions. Chandler experiences a complicated mixture of envy and contempt when meeting a college friend home from England, a man who has become a “brilliant figure on the London Press”. The actor flits from one character to the other, from vulnerability to bombast, with great skill. Chamber music from Feilimidh Nunan (keyboards and violin) and Conor Sheil (clarinet) adds greatly to the atmosphere, with the crying baby a particularly neat trick.