Truth, Love or Promise – Bewley’s Cafe Theatre – Review
by Frank L.

Truth, Love or Promise – Written and performed by Nuala McKeever
April 29th – May 18th, 2024

McKeever, through the clever use of a creative writing course, engenders a space where three strangers come together and as a result, find out more about themselves than they had expected. Brenda is a recently widowed woman who is trying to find her feet again. Maureen is divorced, confident, loud-mouthed and often coarse. They are both from Belfast. They understand the ambience of the place. Joanna is an outsider. She comes from the South of England. She is new to Belfast as she has followed her husband who has a new job in the city. They are a disparate trio. Each attends the course for a different reason.

The set consists of a random collection of chairs which provides the space in which Fiona, the facilitator, gives her classes on creative writing.  They take place once a week. Gradually Brenda, Maureen and Joanna find out more about each other and their various likes and dislikes. Coincidences and similarities are revealed and while initially, they appeared to come from very different backgrounds their individual experiences have links.

McKeever has created a story that keeps you fascinated in the lives of Maureen, Brenda and Joanna. What she does so expertly is portray each of them as individuals with their own past and preoccupations. She has no difficulty switching between the two very different Belfast accents of  Maureen and Brenda. There is an edgy interplay between the two. Joanna is an entirely different vocal challenge and McKeever adopts a more gentle sing-song tone with a slight whiny quality. It emphasises that Joanna is an outsider and indeed her priorities are seen to be different. There are prejudices, the trauma of untimely death and narrow ways of thinking revealed by the three women. But by happenstance, they discover they have a great deal in common which they did not suspect initially.

McKeever handles this vast challenge with confidence. At the end of the production, you have a strong sense of having known each of Maureen, Brenda and Joanna. McKeever makes them familiar. The play was in the Viking Theatre last year and has toured in Northern Ireland, with a two-week run in the Lyric in Belfast to which it returns in August. It is a bright and fun production that brings these three characters to life.