Bob Dylan approached Conor McPherson to see if he would like to write a play which used his songs and then allowed him to use them in any way he liked. Girl from the North Country is not a juke-box musical, a mere compilation of greatest hits; nor is it a Broadway blockbuster. It’s a conversation between the songs and the story.
The songs, drawn from every decade of Dylan’s back catalogue are beautifully sung into stand-microphones and directly to the audience. Used to articulate the feelings of the characters, they give the script its extraordinary emotional depth. The characters are a cross-section of people at a boarding-house in Minnesota during the Depression in 1934. McPherson directs an exemplary ensemble, headed by Ciaran Hinds, and I shall be very surprised if he does not repeat the success he had worldwide with his best-known play, The Weir.