THEATRE - NOAH AND THE TOWER FLOWER

By Sean McLoughlin, Axis Theatre, Ballymun. Until April 28.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the country kitchen on the Abbey Theatre stage was a microcosm for the nascent nation.

One hundred years later, it is the ‘‘Ballymun repertoire’’ at the Axis Theatre that is anatomising the shiny new state, relentlessly insisting that the heroes of modern Ireland are the recovering drug addicts and the reforming criminals struggling to overcome social inequities.