Dublin Fringe Festival: DublinLand at the Lir Academy until September 16
DublinLand is a rich satirical playground. Image by Cian Jordan
This show has a lot going for it. It’s a satire, a great shape for drama. An embattled taoiseach called Simon Costello deals with Ireland’s massive national debt by selling off Dublin so it can be turned into a theme park. The citizens will become extras in an elaborate virtual reality attraction. There’s a lot of Fine Gael energy about this, with the ubiquitous “Simon” forename and the invocation of the Costello dynasty (Decan Costello was attorney general and architect of the FG “just society” policy; his father John A Costello had been taoiseach). DublinLand is to be financed by an American tech-billionaire called Zachary Blompkamp. Zachary is an Elon Musk type, but a complete and total eejit.
