Coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the partition of Ireland and receiving a belated “Great Britain premiere” at the Finborough Theatre a decade after it first opened in Belfast’s Crescent Arts Centre, David Ireland’s provocative satire Yes So I Said Yes isn’t for the faint of heart. Rape, bestiality, homophobia, PTSD, Eamonn Holmes and a randy dog are all deployed to the extremities of absurdity in this blackly comic tale.

But Ireland doesn’t push the envelope on taboo themes merely to elicit laughs. The playwright also has salient points to make about the legacy of the Troubles in Northern Ireland and the post-conflict reality for its many traumatised individuals. In Ireland’s ferocious hands, the Troubles aren’t receding into the distant past so much as festering as open wounds whose scab keeps being peeled off. 

Given the uptick in violence in the region earlier this year, driven by Brexit negotiations and Downing Street’s seemingly cavalier attitude towards the Unionists (who believe Boris Johnson’s Government has betrayed them by prioritising the interests of Irish nationalists), the play is as prescient as ever. It’s a stark reminder that divisions along ideological and cultural lines continue to simmer in Northern Ireland long after the Good Friday Agreement. 

Ceci Calf’s bullet-hole riddled set design is a visual indication that the Troubles are a living memory for many people. These include the protagonist Alan “Snuffy” Black, portrayed with shambling bewilderment by sixty-seven-year-old Irish actor Daragh O’Malley, who is old enough to have experienced the Troubles firsthand. 

In a Northern Ireland that he barely recognises any more, former paramilitary loyalist Black has been made redundant by the peace process and is being kept awake every night by the barking of his neighbour McCorrick’s dog. The trouble is McCorrick won’t even admit that he owns a dog, let alone one that is incessantly disturbing Black’s peace.