A Life

Synopsis

It's reckoning time for Desmond Drumm, a scathingly witty and high-principled civil servant, living in small-town Ireland. With six months to live, Drumm looks back on the triumphs and his tragedies of his life as he desperately tries to put his emotional accounts in order. The past and the present meet as Drumm, his simple and loving wife, and the one true love of his life, who rejected him for a lovable ne'er do well trace the evolution of his life. Isolated from the world by his "high principles," Drumm comes to realise that perhaps he has never given his life or the people in it, a chance...

Our Review:

Michael Coveney - 15 October 2012

There's something forlorn about the Finborough at the moment, with the wine bar closed, customer access through the fire exit, and interval drinks available only in the little sweet shop round the corner.

      But the rich vein of work on the stage continues with the late Hugh Leonard's lovely, spiky, very funny play, A Life (1979), which develops the story of a minor character in another (and better known) of his pieces, Da.

  The role of a desiccated civil servant, Desmond Drumm, who can’t open his mouth without putting his foot in it, or banging his own namesake, was beautifully done in Dublin and London by a slightly too frail, legendary Cyril Cusack; so Hugh Ross, a decidedly English actor, has his work cut out to emulate him as the waves of the Dalkey coast crash into his subconscious and his younger self comes alive in his own unfulfilled love story with Mary Kearns.

    Wisely, Ross does something comp...

Read more of the review

Latest User Review

No reviews yet

Click here to add your review

Related Whatsonstage.com Articles

Honour Bayes: And in the end... More»