There are plays that feel like folklore, and THE PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD is one of them. John Millington Synge’s dark, wickedly funny masterpiece is back in a new production at the National Theatre, and this time it arrives with a cast that feels nothing short of electric. Nicola Coughlan, fresh from her triumph in BRIDGERTON, steps into the world of Pegeen Flaherty — a young woman whose ordinary life in a rural Irish pub is shattered the moment a breathless stranger walks through the door claiming to have murdered his own father. What follows is not the horror story you might expect. Instead, the village does something altogether more strange and human: they make him a hero.

That tension between violence and desire, between reputation and reality, is what makes Synge’s writing so endlessly alive, and director Caitríona McLaughlin keeps every secret wound tightly coiled beneath the surface. Joining Coughlan is Éanna Hardwicke, who brought such chilling precision to THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT, alongside the beloved Siobhán McSweeney of DERRY GIRLS fame — a pairing that promises both warmth and genuine menace in equal measure. And when a second man unexpectedly appears to complicate everything, the play reveals itself to be about something far bigger than one killer’s charm: it’s about how easily we reshape the truth to fit the story we want to tell.

Filmed live on stage and overflowing with secrets, this is essential viewing.