Theatre never ceases to amaze me.  I am continually surprised by its variety. What hits home so often is how the most unlikely events and happenings in our mundane, daily lives are turned by inventive and creative minds into entertainment. 

So it is with How to Keep an Alien, writer Sonya Kelly’s account of her struggle with bureaucracy in the shape of the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service. If you thought filling in a tax form was difficult, then Kelly’s tale will convince you it is really a piece of cake. 

The alien in question is Kelly’s soon-to-be partner Kate, a native of tropical Queensland who, with her working visa about to expire, unaccountably wishes to remain in Ireland where the “sun is only a rumour.” It isn’t to be and so, for Aussie Kate, it is back to the land of the snakes and kangaroos. The love affair seems to be over.

Sonya Kelly is not just a fine writer. She is no mean slouch as a performer, either, as she runs us through the trials and tribulations of seeking a partner visa, when Kate returns months later, on a holiday. Kelly is helped by her stage manager, Paul Curley, who runs the show from the stage and fills in with a number of one line parts, but the whole piece is essentially a one woman show. 

Kelly has a natural and engaging presence which is endearing. She phrases lines well, has lovely timing and keeps the whole thing rolling nicely along. She is an excellent story teller, who knows exactly how to keep an audience focused.

Her writing helps here. It is often very funny, always entertaining and with a slightly off beat feel to it. Her frequently striking images and turns of phrase bring a smile to every face. At the same time, she contrasts her own struggle with the visa wallahs with the rather more harrowing account of the boat trip to Australia made by her partner’s Irish ancestor. It is a neat conceit which adds an interesting dimension to the play. 

While, for Sonya and Kate, the course of true love never did run smooth,for the audience the course of How to Keep an Alien certainly does. It’s an entertaining show, well produced and executed.

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Sonya regales us with a tale – dedicated to the long ago but not forgotten teacher, Miss Kennedy – of her ‘Adventures with an Alien’ (otherwise colloquially known as an Australian) and the hurdle-laden task of holding onto the woman of her dreams.

Sonya transports us back to the fateful meeting when her eyes lock with the Australian Stage Manger across an Irish castle ballroom, where she is rehearsing a dance, dressed in fur to make her look more Russian and speaking with a fake English accent to depict that it’s the ‘olden’ days. 

While Australians are warmly welcomed by the Irish Government, this is typically a short-term arrangement and we find our Alien being directed to leave, in no uncertain terms, by the Irish authorities.

Poor Sonya is devastated and resorts to a desperate attempt to connect with her soul-mate across half a world using nothing more than a sandwich bag and the help of the Irish Post.

We follow Sonya and her Alien’s trials as they attempt to take on the Irish Immigration service. The accompanying sound track to the play is masterfully executed by Paul Curley, the on-stage Stage Manager and ‘occasional’ Actor. We are instantly transported to the Dublin immigration office and the cesspit of humanity that it contains, along with the uncaring officials, some with faces only a mother could love. 

Whilst for many of us, love is never simple, add a dash of bureaucratic Catch-22, an international border, two cultures, busy work schedules and the pressure of providing ‘evidence’ to show you love someone, and you have the makings of a hilarious anecdote.

Sonya is captivating in her ability to create the atmosphere of the moment and the exquisite use of language to depict the scene. We laugh through her tears and frustration that were no doubt a part of the process, as we experience the glare of the tropical Queensland sun through the eyes of the truly Irish. 

This is a memorable and touching tale of true love and outright determination. 

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This charming tale has all the hyphens: it’s real-life, feel-good and laugh-out-loud funny.

Endearing in big Jarvis Cocker style-glasses, Irish storyteller Sonya Kelly presents the romantic comedy, How to Keep an Alien, about having to prove her love – not to her girlfriend, but to a prosaic government administration, to earn a partner visa. [More] 

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Set and lighting designer Sarah Jane Shiels has masterfully combined her two functions, imbuing a somewhat domestic set – a couple of desks and office chairs on grey-blue carpet flooring – with a bit of chromatic flair: multiple coloured glowing lamps filling the upstage box-shelving units, beneath an asymmetric sailcloth screen.

Performer, protagonist and autobiographical playwright Sonya Kelly regales us with the ups and downs of her personal romantic adventure with Kate, the stage manager from Queensland.  Meeting on set and bonding over a mutual disrespect for the production in question and the people running it, especially the choreographer, her distinctly Irish glib turn of phrase, laced with typically acerbic dark humour, belies what is essentially an optimistic real-life rom-com. 

Director Gina Moxley keeps the action flippant and meta, as Kelly mostly relates directly to the audience and openly cues her onstage stage manager, sound operator and secondary performer Paul Curley working from a laptop at the smaller upstage desk. 

Ultimately the key to this entire production is Kelly’s entertaining personality and observational wit, garnished with Curley’s affable charm and helpful interjections. 

The main obstacle in Sonya’s passionate romance concerns Kate’s temporary resident status and the multitude of hoops required to jump through to award her citizenship, evidenced by the size of Kelly’s bulging ringbinder-full of requisite documentation, IDs, testimonials and associated bureaucratic waffle. 

As Sonya relives the emotional roller-coaster, excerpts from the diary and letters written by Kate’s unproven great-great-grandmother during her perilous six month boat trip from the Emerald Isle to the great down-under, a century and a half prior, provide a sobering perspective on the difficulties of modern living. 

Incidental music and occasional uplifting anthems of sound designer Carl Kennedy underpin the momentous narrative. There’s really nothing more to say about How to Keep an Alien that isn’t better expressed by Kelly herself in her engagingly animated manner.  

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