Borstal Boy | |
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Written by | Brendan Behan (novel) Frank McMahon (play) |
Characters |
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Date premiered | 1967 |
Place premiered | Abbey Theatre Dublin, Ireland |
Original language | English |
Subject | |
Genre | Drama, Romance |
Setting | Liverpool; Dublin, 1939 |
Borstal Boy is a play adapted by Frank McMahon from the 1958 autobiographical novel of Irish nationalist Brendan Behan of the same title. The play debuted in 1967 at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, with Frank Grimes as the young Behan. McMahon won a New York Drama Critics' Circle Award in 1970 and Tony Award in 1970 for his adaptation.
The title takes its name from the borstal, a British juvenile jail, at Hollesley Bay. The book was originally banned in the Republic of Ireland for obscenity.
The story is a recounting of Behan's imprisonment at Hollesley Bay for carrying explosives into the United Kingdom, with intent to cause explosions on a mission for the I.R.A. It shows the young, idealistic Behan, over the three years of his sentence, softening his radical stance and warming to the other prisoners.
The novel was adapted for film by Peter Sheridan and Nye Heron in 2000.
Auntie Mame: An Irreverent Escapade is a 1955 novel by American author Patrick Dennis chronicling the madcap adventures of a boy, Patrick, growing up as the ward of his Aunt Mame Dennis, the sister of his dead father.
Brendan Francis Aidan Behan was an Irish poet, short story writer, novelist, playwright, and Irish Republican, an activist who wrote in both English and Irish. His widely acknowledged alcohol dependence, despite attempts to treat it, impacted his creative capacities and contributed to health and social problems which curtailed his artistic output and finally his life.
A borstal was a type of youth detention centre in the United Kingdom, several member states of the Commonwealth and the Republic of Ireland. In India, such a detention centre is known as a borstal school.
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Borstal Boy is a 1958 autobiographical book by Brendan Behan. The story depicts a young, fervently idealistic Behan, who loses his naïveté over the three years of his sentence to a juvenile borstal, softening his radical Irish republican stance and warming to his British fellow prisoners. From a technical standpoint, the novel is chiefly notable for the art with which it captures the lively dialogue of the Borstal inmates, with a variety of the many subtly distinctive accents of Britain and Ireland intact on the page. Ultimately, Behan demonstrated by his skillful dialogue that working class Irish Catholics and English Protestants actually had more in common with one another through class than they had supposed, and that alleged barriers of religion and ethnicity were merely superficial and imposed by a fearful middle class.
The Hostage is a 1958 English-language play, with songs, by Irish playwright Brendan Behan. It consists of a much longer text, with songs, expanded from a one-act Irish language play An Giall also by Behan.
Dominic Behan was an Irish writer, songwriter and singer from Dublin who wrote in Irish and English. He was a socialist and an Irish republican. Born into the literary Behan family, he was one of the most influential Irish songwriters of the 20th century.
Holt McCallany is an American actor. He is known for portraying FBI Special Agent Bill Tench on the series Mindhunter (2017–19) and has had leading and supporting roles in various television series and films, including Lights Out, Fight Club, Three Kings, Shot Caller, Wrath of Man, Nightmare Alley, and The Iron Claw.
HM Prison Hollesley Bay, known locally as Hollesley Bay Colony or simply The Colony, is a Category D men's prison and Young Offender Institution, located in the village of Hollesley, about 8 miles (13 km) from the town of Woodbridge in Suffolk, England. The prison is operated by His Majesty's Prison Service.
Peter Sheridan is an Irish playwright, screenwriter and director. He lives in Dublin. His awards include the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature in 1978. In 1980 he was writer-in-residence in the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, and his short film, The Breakfast, won several European awards. He wrote the pilot episode of Fair City. He wrote and directed the film Borstal Boy, which was released in 2002. He is the brother of the film director Jim Sheridan.
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Borstal Boy may refer to:
Hollesley is a village and civil parish in the East Suffolk district of Suffolk east of Ipswich in eastern England. Located on the Bawdsey peninsula five miles south-east of Woodbridge, in 2005 it had a population of 1,400 increasing to 1,581 at the 2011 Census.
Borstal Boy is a 2000 romantic drama film directed by Peter Sheridan, based on the 1958 autobiographical novel of the same name by Brendan Behan.
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