A number of the BBC's "Play for Today" series were set in Northern Ireland. Although the programme's run during the seventies and early eighties coincided with some of the worst periods of "The Troubles", by no means all of these plays were political in nature. In Graham Reid's "Billy" trilogy, for example, while the Troubles form the backdrop to the story they are not its subject.
Similarly, "Iris in the Traffic, Ruby in the Rain" by another Ulster playwright, Stewart Parker, has been described as "a day in the life of early '80s Belfast". We see soldiers and armed police on the streets, but there is no discussion of why they are there. The two title characters at first appear to have little to do with one another. Iris, a girl in her late teens, is trying to navigate her way through the city's traffic on the way to a job interview, while Ruby, a thirty-something social worker, already suffering from a cold, gets caught in a downpour. We learn that Ruby has recently been divorced, and her efforts to negotiate the sale of the matrimonial home with her ex-husband form part of the story.
A key moment comes when Ruby meets an old woman named Sadie, standing in the street outside her home where there has been a fire. Ruby tries to take her to hospital, but finds that she is already well-known to the hospital staff for all the wrong reasons. They refuse to admit her because of her previous history of anti-social behaviour, including physical assault. Ruby, however, is not to be deterred and grimly tries to find someone who will help the old lady. Iris, meanwhile, has arrived late for her interview and been rejected. Only at the end do the two women's paths meet, when it is revealed that Iris is Sadie's daughter.
I note that the only other reviewer on here awarded a perfect ten, despite not being able to recall much of a play he/she had seen a long time earlier, because of his/her admiration for the music of Stiff Little Fingers, a Northern Irish punk band featured here. (Iris goes to watch one of their gigs, and Jake Burns, the band's lead singer, plays her boyfriend). Well, I am not a great fan of SLF, or of punk in general, so that wasn't an important factor for me. There is a good performance from Frances Tomelty as Ruby, but overall this wasn't ever a play I could get really involved in.
I think that the problem is that, despite her not being named in the title, the most important character in the play is Sadie rather than Ruby or Iris, and yet she is not a character we can really identify with. I think that Parker was trying to suggest that she is a vulnerable character in need of help, yet too often she comes across as just plain unpleasant and the author of her own misfortunes. As a picture of life in the Ulster of the late seventies and early eighties, "Iris in the Traffic, Ruby in the Rain" lacks the power and emotional impact of the "Billy" plays, especially the first, "Too Late to Talk to Billy", which was shown later in the same season of "Play for Today". 5/10.
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