The court of sexual appeal

Colin Murphy is seduced by the music, words, bawdiness and fun of The Midnight Court in Feakle, Co Clare

No spiv or pimp or painted tart
Will treat the law as a thing of sport
While Aeval rules the Midnight Court.
It's assembled in Feakle this very day
And she'd like to hear what you've to say

We were sitting in Mahaffy's nursing pints when a man from Galway arrived bearing news. The Midnight Court had assembled, once more, and was to sit in Feakle. Feakle, east Clare, where Queen Aeval's court first assembled more than two cenuries ago. It would be unmissable, he said. We downed our pints and ventured forth.

Seven days later, we stumble into Pepper's Bar outside Feakle. A modest marquee tent out the back was put up some years ago for a festival, and they never quite got around to taking it down.

A bar at the back of the tent dispenses pints. We'd telephoned anxiously beforehand, fearing being late, lost somewhere off the map as we headed for Feakle, but there's certainly no hurry tonight. Producer Liam Trellis explains that everyone is feeling a bit slow: they'd had a session till three after the show the previous night. "As you can imagine, when you're touring with ten musicians."

Shortly after 9pm, the crowded tent hushes. The musicians – a motley-looking crew in dodgy fedoras – and a foursome of female mannequins in red macs and light blue veils troupe onto the stage, which is decorated in pinks and lilacs with a gaudy mixture of pop culture and faux-Celtic images. They ease into song, and then Sean Tyrell – as the poet-narrator Brian Merriman – takes to the front of the stage.

Merriman was a hedge-school teacher and small-holding farmer in Feakle in the late 1700s who left little other legacy apart from a pair of awards from the Royal Dublin Society for his flax crop and a couple of death notices (in the Limerick Gazette, "Died. Mr Bryan Merryman, teacher of Mathematics, etc.") But his 1780 epic poem, 'Cúirt an Mheán Oíche', has been a fixture of the Irish (and English) language cannon since.

The poet is walking at dawn through the Clare countryside. "Loch Gréine lifts my soul with joy – Such land! Such country! What a sky! How silently the mountains rest Their heads upon each other's breast."

Tyrell gives it an easy, syncopated rhythm, lulling us into the story. The poet stops to rest, and falls asleep. In his dreams, a woman appears. This is the predictable form of the aisling, but Merriman subverts (or perverts) it. The woman is no demure Éire come to cry of political oppression, but a monstrous bailiff who summons the poet to the Midnight Court. And the court has little interest in politics either: its prime concern is sex.

It's like The Jerry Springer Show, but sung in rhyme. Merriman gives us a court of sexual appeal: a succession of witnesses recount their sexual experiences (or lack of them), with the audience cheering them on and a judge presiding.

The women of Ireland are oppressed not by England, but by their recalcitrant menfolk who are slow to marry and slower still to consumate. A succession of them parade their frustrations before the court. "At night with longing I'm lacerated, Alone in bed I lie frustrated And damned with dreams of desire denied My hunger goes unsatisfied", one says. Another complains of a husband "Who, lure as she might, would never mate her But lay like a human refrigerator". And it gets bawdier. (And too bawdy for 1940s Ireland, when Frank O'Connor's translation fell foul of the censor.) Tyrell is as irreverant with the music as Merriman is with social mores, and together they take us through a delicious litany of sexual scenarios sung in styles that veer audaciously from calypso to gospel, from Thin Lizzy to Clannad.

If only they'd taught us this for Leaving Cert Irish. It is the antithesis of Peig, who seemed to have endless children without the evident participation of a man. Between Peig and archaic ballads to a beautiful but sexless Éire, school Irish compounded the association of the language with increasingly remote ideologies – of anti-colonialism and of prurient Catholicism. The Midnight Court, raucous, lascivious, funny and very human – and not without pertinant social commentary – would have made for a radical and yet authentic departure from the traditional syllabus.

The music is seamless and the singing throughout uplifting. Debra Wallace gives it soul, Bernie O'Mahoney sexes it up, Tess Purcell vamps and Judy McKeown, as well as having a great voice, is simply hilarious. Willie Greene, as well as playing guitar and bass, treats us to a wonderfully understated (and surprisingly sympathetic), growling performance as the male defendant.

Sean Tyrell has the perfect aspect for the part of the poet-narrator, a naturally questioning face and drooping moustache giving him a laconic look that suits his low-key style of delivery. Occasionally, he lapses into reciting by rote, losing momentarily the freshness and vividness of the lines. On the small, shallow stage in Feakle, the production seems restricted and the potential physical impressiveness of the Queen Aeval character is lost. As theatre, the piece would be stonger were it shorter – the second half doesn't quite hold the energy or interest levels of the first, and the rhymes can start to roll over you instead of slapping you in the face.

As if to avert this, the audience are separated at the interval – men to one side, women to the other. It's an ingenious idea, a very simple subversion – when have you ever watched a play surrounded only by people of your own sex? – and, though the device isn't exploited to the full by Tyrell and cast, it does add a slight edge to the show.

Producer Liam Rellis says he'd ideally just play the show in tents – it has the intimate and magical feel of the travelling circus – but economics dictate they play the big venues when they can, and after a couple of nights paying homage in Feakle it's on to the Cork Opera House (and in September to the Civic in Tallaght). The show is designed for these larger stages, though, so it should look more comfortable than squeezed into Pepper's tent. But any criticisms are quibbles: this is a marvellous piece of theatre, poetry, music and entertainment.