Waxing Gargle

Everyone knows that The Mousetrap is the longest-running play in the world, right? Well, here’s something you probably didn’t know. I certainly didn’t until Jane Brennan told me. At one point “the second longest running play...” etc was The Drunkard, originally written by W.H. Smith and “a gentleman” many believe to be Barnum of Barnum and Bailey fame. The play has now been adapted by Tom Murphy, Jane’s partner, is produced by her theatre company b*spoke and was so successful during its recent run at the Samuel Beckett Theatre that it ‘s transferring to the Olympia.

The Drunkard is also a bit of a dynastic delight for Brennan given that her fellow-actor and brother Stephen plays a lead role. As does her niece Sarah-Jane Drummey. And if that’s not enough, Jane’s dad Denis, back in the 1940s, at the Gate theatre, originally played the role of McGinty now being performed by his son, Stephen. And the play also stars Sarah Brennan! At this rate shouldn’t Jane have gotten Tom Murphy to change his name to Brennan?
“I tried but it didn’t work, it’s stood him in good stead until now!” Jane laughs before explaining how Murphy got involved in her production of The Drunkard.
“We have these photographs, at home, of the production dad appeared in and they’ve always intrigued us but when myself and Alison McKenna, who are b*spoke, where trying to decide what to do, I said I’d like to do a melodrama. Then I was talking to Stephen and he said why not The Drunkard because he’d always wanted to play the villain. And because b*spoke is tailor-made for actors in the sense that we, generally, look around at what actors are available and then decide what play to do. So, apart from Stephen being my brother that put the whole idea in my head.
And so, without Tom’s involvement, Jane herself sat down and tried to adapt the play. At one point, Tom looked at what his partner was writing and gave probably the single most devastating theatrical review in history!
‘He just said, ‘no, no, no’!” Jane recalls, laughing. “Then he started to work on it himself and gradually, the darker side of the piece eventually hooked him in.”
Darkness attracting Tom Murphy? Hardly a novelty. But Jane Brennan suggests that what “amazed” her was that Murphy managed to “balance the style, and all its frolicking and romping, with the serious underbelly of the play.In that sense what Tom delivered “worked out, far beyond” Jane’s wildest expectations.
That’s due in no small part to the impressive cast, a highly accomplished selectinof thespian talent including Pauline McGlynn, Nick Dunning, Rory Keenan, Jack Lynch, Rory Nolan. The Drunkard’s director, meanwhile, is the ever-innovative Lynne Parker.
Finally, Jane just knows that her dad would be “very proud” of this production. And talk about following in his footsteps:
“Well, Stephen is actually wearing my father’s shoes for the role,” she explains.

The Drunkard plays at the Olympia From Septemebr 17-27