FIGHTING WORDS (Wales Millennium Centre)
Set in 1980 when local boy and boxing wonder Johnny “Matchstick Man” Owen of Merthyr Tydfil in Wales goes off to Los Angeles to fight Mexican challenger Lupe Pintor for the world bantam-weight title. The men of the village travel with him as an entourage with hopes of witnessing boxing history, while three women who stay behind are left to luxuriate in the freedom from them and to consider the holes in their lives that are magnified by their men’s absence.
WESTERN MAIL, UK “The fight is literally re-enacted by Peg (Magi Loucks). This is perhaps the most effective part of the play when the sheer disgusting brutality of boxing is described as if it were a classical ballet performance but culminating in a real death.”
THEATRE IN WALES, UK “impressive displays of full-blooded naturalistic acting that appear real and spontaneous but are borne of disciplined, rigorous rehearsal. Laura Gardner (Mrs Davies), Bernadette Sullivan (Nia) and Magi Loucks (Peg) handle the emotional handbrake turns with the sucker-punch of a pugilist; there’s a genuine sparky chemistry between them that chutzpahs the action along”