SOURCE: A review of The Shadow of a Gunman, in Punch, Vol. 172, June 8, 1927, p. 637.

In the following review of the London premiere of The Shadow of a Gunman, the critic focuses on O'Casey's dramatic technique, observing that the play's comedic overtones undermines its tragic dénouement.

One assumes that Mr. Sean O'Casey's method of setting his tragedy against a pattern of jokes is not due to ignorance of the difficulties involved but is a deliberate device to heighten the effect of the catastrophe. In The Shadow of a Gunman the tragic ending is effective enough when it arrives, but it is not sufficiently prepared, or perhaps too subtly, so that the audience has got itself into a thoroughly rollicking mood (sustained by Mr. Arthur Sinclair's broad diverting humour) and refuses to smile but must needs laugh aloud at everything. The discerning, who in the Second Act begin to...