Dragon Review: Consumed – Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Published on: 17 Sep, 2025
Updated on: 17 Sep, 2025

Four generations of women celebrating great-grandmother’s 90th birthday is the premise of Consumed. Pamela Raith

By Alice Fowler

Some plays begin quietly and build to a climax. Some start with a bang, simmer down, then come back to the boil. And a few, like Consumed, playing at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre this week, remain at fever pitch the whole way through.

Eileen (Julia Dearden) contemplates her 90th birthday lunch as daughter Gilly (Andrea Irvine) dashes in. Pamela Raith

Consumed has a fine pedigree. Karis Kelly’s drama of dysfunctional family dynamics, set in West Belfast, won the Women’s Prize for Playwriting in 2022. It’s a Paines Plough, Belgrade Theatre and Sheffield Theatres production, in association with the renowned Lyric Belfast.

The action takes place in a highly realistic kitchen, complete with washing machine, oven, fitted cupboards and microwave. Centre stage is a table, around which four generations of one family, all female, gather to celebrate the 90th birthday of great grandmother Eileen (Julia Dearden). ‘Celebrate’ is a misnomer, however, for this heart-warming gathering very soon breaks down into barbed asides, reproach, recrimination and, before long, outright war.

Dearden as strident matriarch Eileen, Andrea Irvine as her stressed-out daughter Lily, Caoimhe Farren as troubled grown-up grand-daughter Jenny, and Muireann Ni Fhaogain as teenage great grand-daughter Muireann all put their hearts into Kelly’s hyperactive script.

The title ‘Consumed’ presumably refers to the way these four characters are eaten up by guilt, resentment, rage, alcoholism, infidelity and much else besides. It also refers to the three-course birthday meal which Lily valiantly cooks and serves through the play. (Not that the food produced is merely eaten; in addition, in director Katie Posner’s high-decibel production, hands are thrust in burning-hot soup, potatoes hurled or stuffed into unwilling mouths).

At breaking point: Gilly’s relationship with mother Eileen. Pamela Raith

All this takes a certain stamina to watch. Beneath its seething surface, Consumed explores interesting themes. Inter-generational trauma, for example, explored via the device of a family gathering, is a rich seam in both drama and literature. The play references the enduring impact of the Troubles and suggests, plausibly enough, that the effects of the Great Famine of the mid-19th century still echo today.

A tender moment between mother and daughter: Jenny and Muireann. Pamela Raith

The production’s trigger list is long and, with so many difficult issues piled into the mix, nuance and character development fall largely by the wayside. Early on, many lines are darkly comic but, as the play runs its course over an hour and ten minutes (no interval), humour fades.

With its kitchen setting, this production reminded me of a chef gone mad, throwing every possible ingredient into a concoction that, ultimately, proves hard to digest. If you like your drama with the dial turned high, this one’s for you.

Consumed runs at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre until Saturday, September 20. Box Office 01483 440000 or click here.