★★★★ Philomena McGuiness arrives onstage as if stepping out of a half‑remembered photograph: a young nurse on the cusp of war, clutching her poetry like a talisman. Jasmin Gleeson gives her shape, breath, and a pulse that never falters. She moves with the brisk efficiency of someone trained to keep going even when the world is falling apart, yet she lets us see the cracks—those tiny fractures where fear, hope, and humour seep through.
Josh King’s script is quick on its feet, darting between memory and confession, and Gleeson matches it beat for beat. She has that rare ability to shift tempo without ever losing the thread. One moment she’s recounting the chaos of a London ward in 1939, the next she’s reciting a scrap of verse with a wry smile, letting poetry soften the edges of brutality. Her face does much of the heavy lifting: a tightening of the jaw, a flicker of doubt, the kind of weary half‑smile nurses wear when they’ve seen too much and still have to carry on.
The bleakness of wartime nursing is never overstated. Instead, it’s etched quietly into her posture, her pauses, the way she holds her breath before describing the wounded men she tended. Gleeson’s performance is grounded, unshowy, and deeply human. She gives Philomena dignity without sanding down her rougher corners.
If there’s a gap, it’s the absence of any real Irish cultural texture. Philomena leaves Dublin, yet Dublin never quite leaves her. The script doesn’t explore that heritage, nor the cultural weight of an Irish woman stepping into the machinery of Britain’s war effort. A few touches—a memory, a song, a phrase—would have enriched the character’s roots and sharpened her sense of displacement.
But even with that missing thread, the production holds fast. It’s intimate, tightly paced, and carried by a performer who understands how to make a solo show feel full. Gleeson keeps the audience close, never letting the energy sag, and by the end Philomena feels less like a character and more like someone you’ve genuinely met.
A quietly compelling piece of wartime storytelling, lifted by a strong central performance.
By Jacqueline Sharp
