SEVEN DRUNKEN NIGHTS
New Wimbledon Theatre
★★★
“We haven’t learned a lot, but the craic has been grand”
The New Wimbledon Theatre’s website categorises “Seven Drunken Nights” as a concert. The press release’s headline claims it is the ‘story of the Dubliners’ – one of Ireland’s most iconic folk bands. Both announce that it is a celebration. Of that we can be totally sure. Now in its tenth year on the road, the production is still delighting audiences with its faithful arrangements of Irish classics. The eight-piece band – led by the creator, writer and director Ged Graham – fill the venue with the reels and ballads we have come to know and love.
Whether it is the story of The Dubliners is questionable. There is a fair bit of narration between the numbers, mostly delivered by Graham. If you are already a fan it is decidedly superfluous, if you’re coming at it afresh then it is equally irrelevant. The story telling is limited, restricting itself to dates and personnel changes; nothing that isn’t covered by a couple of column inches on Wikipedia. Bizarrely the back wall sports a giant video screen which frequently interrupts the action with vintage adverts for Beamish stout, Murphys or Harp lager. I guess it is supposed to enhance the effect that we are sitting in the back room of a Dublin pub somewhere in the seventies. More specifically O’Donoghue’s, tucked away on Merrion Row near St Stephen’s Green, which is where the band cut its teeth. The Dubliners were originally known as The Ronnie Drew Ballad Group (once mistakenly billed as The Ronnie Drew Ballet Group). Fellow band member, Luke Kelly, decided the name was misrepresentative, so looking up from his copy of James Joyce’s ‘Dubliners’, suggested their new name.
The show is named after The Dubliners’ chart hit from the sixties – “Seven Drunken Nights”, and is essentially a tribute act. With no introduction we are singing along to ‘The Wild Rover’, ‘The Irish Rover’, ‘The Leaving of Liverpool’, ‘Dirty Old Town’, ‘Finnegan’s Wake’ and many, many others. Without attempting to replicate the original line up, the band members give note prefect renditions of the songs with their full vocals and expert musicianship. In the background, a barman is serving pints of Guiness – visibly ‘Guiness Zero’ however – a reflection of the slight edge of sanitised inauthenticity. For the full effect we would need to be in a sweaty bar room, thick with cigarette smoke. Something is lost in the translation to a theatre auditorium.
But that doesn’t stop the charismatic personalities of the cast bringing us to our feet. Scattered among the toe tapping and hand clapping are moments of poignancy. An A Capella interlude demonstrates the glorious harmonies these singers are capable of, and a stripped back version of ‘Dublin in the Rare Old Times’ is soaked in nostalgia; also paying tribute to past ‘Dubliners’ members who are no longer with us. At one point, Ged Graham is alone on stage to give us a powerful yet mournful rendition of ‘The Town I Loved so Well’.
The show’s encore feels like an after-hours lock-in, for which we are grateful that we have hung around until closing time to be included in. There have been moments during the preceding two and a half hours when we have lost connection. The story jumps somewhat, then abruptly stops at the late eighties. Neither is there any political or social reference. The absence in the repertoire of the rebel songs, the anti-war themes and socialist overtones is perhaps a necessary choice, but it dilutes the history, and consequently the importance, of The Dubliners’ legacy. By now, though, the audience doesn’t seem to care. We are clapping along, not necessarily in time, and raucously singing along. Not necessarily in tune. What is spot-on, however, is the enthusiasm – on and off the stage. ‘Whiskey in the Jar’ morphs into the lower tempo ‘Molly Malone’. We haven’t learned a lot, but the craic has been grand.
SEVEN DRUNKEN NIGHTS
New Wimbledon Theatre then UK Tour continues
Reviewed on 7th April 2026
by Jonathan Evans
Photography by Prestige Productions
