Two things, above all, come over very clearly in this production. One is the extraordinarily encompassing nature of Joyce’s vision of the city-life he re-created in Ulysses: the staging, like the book, teems with variousness, and bristles with the sheer delight which Joyce, like Dickens, took in observing at close quarters the foibles and confabulations of everyday human existence. For both authors, such observations were a constantly renewing, life-enhancing experience, and that feeling emanates glowingly from Tron Theatre’s presentation.

The other is the humour of Joyce’s writing. We know it’s there, of course, mischievously stalking its way through virtually every page of the novel. Hearing it aloud, though, is different – the lilt, the droll half-emphasis, the knowing lean upon a particular syllable or consonant. Arnold points these things up tellingly with his actors, who don’t milk the text unduly, but regularly set it loose to work its comic magic.

Joyce’s partner Nora regularly complained of being kept awake at night by her husband laughing loudly as he worked on Ulysses, creating the gallery of characters who have since become fictional immortals. Dermot Bolger and Andy Arnold understand that laughter, and give a generous measure of it back to audiences in this funny, touching, provocative, and stimulating production.

The Irish Theatre Review