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In the Arctic of it

Squeezing himself into the frost-caked shoes of polar explorer Tom Crean Aidan Dooley has crafted a chilly masterpiece with a heart of human warmth.

Greg McAteer, 24 Jan 2007

Rarely, if ever, does a play makes its way from the classroom onto the world’s stage. But that is precisely what happened to Aidan Dooley’s Tom Crean: Antarctic Explorer.

The one-man show was originally commissioned by the powers-that-be in a museum in Britain, says its author, because they thought the life of the only man – an Irishman, at that! – who ever served with Scott and Shackleton on three famous expeditions should be celebrated.

It has since gone on to win for Dooley a Best Actor Nomination at the Dublin Fringe Festival in 2003, Best Solo Performance Award Winner at the New York International Fringe Festival 2003 and a Winner of the Fringe First at Edinburgh last year. Tom Crean: Antartic Explorer also has been described by at least one critic as “a remarkable and uplifting piece of theatre” though it could easily have been otherwise, given the fact that it tells the tale of Crean’s 36 mile solitary trek to base camp during the Terra Nova expedition of 1910-1913 to rescue his comrades Teddy Evans and William Lashly.

“The play could very much have been otherwise,” Dooley agrees. “In fact a lot of people understandably think it is going to be a very heavy evening at the theatre, but it’s not. On the contrary it’s uplifting, not just in terms of the story but because I bring a lot of humour to the tale. Instinctively, I like to hear an audience laugh.

“When you hear the stories of Crean’s endeavours to keep other people alive, it gives you that sense of ‘what the hell am I complaining about’ no matter what may be happening in your life. It’s a bit like a really good motivational experience when you hear, say, the story of someone who is blind and disabled and is trying to cross the Sahara. It definitely makes you feel life is worth living.”

Likewise, obviously, the play makes you feel that lives are worth saving – or at least trying to save, whatever the context. But, for those who don’t known the story, let’s not spoil the evening by disclosing whether Crean does actually save his buddies or, indeed, whether he lives or dies.



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Greg McAteer

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