Emily McGee’s Fourth Wall and a Ceiling offers a unique and compelling perspective on the struggles of a community theatre company. It’s a film that manages to be both deeply personal and universally relevant.

The beloved home of a small theatre community grows empty after almost twenty-five years. As pandemic restrictions tighten, rehearsals for their upcoming production become challenging. Their future is uncertain, so they leave home and embrace the unknown.

Theatre groups like the Barnstorm Theatre Company in Kilkenny have been taking hit after hit in recent years. Be it from the continuous dwindling of funding for the arts that has swept through the UK and Ireland or the utter devastation of the COVID pandemic. Many never stood a chance, and sadly for Barnstorm, they almost added their group to the piling number of closures. Yet, even in these all too brief 10 minutes, it still pains you to witness.

Fourth Wall and a Ceiling takes an observational tone, capturing the theatre company’s struggle to pack up their memories and venture into the unknown. While the film could be a sombre reflection, the subjects of it carry on with resilience and hopeful, positive energy that is unique to the arts sector. They are people who have weathered the financial storms and are determined to emerge on the brighter side of another crisis.

But, jeez, does it all still sting horribly? This attitude is exemplified by Artistic Director Philip Hardy, who, in between the slow dismantling of the past 30-odd years of his life, is still directing the upcoming play and trying to negotiate the tribulations of rehearsals in a distanced setting. It makes Fourth Wall and a Ceiling feel all too short. You want to sit down and listen to the thoughts of what this team is going through. What the performers there are feeling about this situation.

McGee pushes away from that temptation, though, to give us something more poetic, a document of the real life of a situation of shutting the doors and completely gutting a tiny kitchen of something that will have been vital to the arts community in a town. By moving back and forth between the normal day-to-day efforts and what those efforts produce, it allows us to hold onto hope that this isn’t just the end for Barnstorm, but for others in their situation. That thin slither of positivity never leaves, and it hopefully never does.

That hope stays with you, even to the point you may have a quick search for your own local group. I know it did for me. It can’t be stated how personal this story feels while also feeling universal to those in the sector. It is a story that echoes throughout the UK and Ireland, maybe even the world, as times get tougher and tougher. McGee has done some fantastic work here.

Fourth Wall and a Ceiling will be showing as part of the Competition Shorts Programme 1 on Saturday 22nd 1pm at the Queen’s Film Theatre. Tickets are available here.

★★★ 1/2

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