Lourdes gets a Vegas glow-up at Dublin theatre festival, where canvases are slashed

A musical about a drama group’s pilgrimage and reflections on activist art join an intriguing show about lost languages

In a Dublin theatre festival programme tackling heavy themes of racism, conflict and prejudice, Lourdes! The Musical (★★★★☆) promises something effervescent. Xnthony Ltd, the creators of Oliver Cromwell Is Really Very Sorry, have turned their lightly quizzical gaze to the French pilgrimage town – “a holy Blackpool, a divine Las Vegas” and a site of hope or desperation for five unlikely travelling companions.

Back in his home village in “Countryland”, in 2008, following a diagnosis of HIV that punctures his dreams of Los Angeles, singer-songwriter Matthew (Riain Cash) lends his star power to a parish drama group taking a musical about Saint Bernadette to Lourdes. Interweaving this show-within-a-show and the pilgrimage strands, Xnthony’s lyrics and Matthew Floyd Jones’s score blend pop, club beats and soulful ballads. …