A Whistle in the Dark: Flawless Brian Gleeson in Tom Murphy's masterpiece

A family battle over the soul of their youngest member, in Tom Murphy's masterpiece.

Brian Gleeson as Harry in Tom Murphy’s A Whistle in the Dark on the Peacock stage, at the Abbey Theatre, directed by Jason Byrne. Image: Ros Kavanagh

Abbey Theatre - Peacock Stage, Dublin

★★★★★

There is a touch of a Preppy to Michael Carney, a character in the Abbey Theatre’s play A Whistle in the Dark, set in the ‘60s. An educated man from Mayo, and making a go of a new life in Coventry, he studies his reflection in a mirror: straightening his tie behind a wine-red sweater vest; combing his hair to the side. He seemed to be doing well, until his law-breaking brothers moved in with him.

Early in the playscript – Tom Murphy’s masterpiece from 1961 – there is talk of separate camps. “I married you, not your brothers,” says Michael’s wife (Sarah Morris, giving a painstaking performance of frustration). If he were a Preppy, what does that make everyone else in the play? Murphy had an abundance of choice; mid-century youth culture gave the world the potent disillusionment of the Greasers, the riots of the Teddy Boys, the psychedelia of the Mods. Instead, the playwright settled on a colloquialism from his native Tuam. “Them Shams!” says Harry, Michael’s hot-headed brother (a flawless Brian Gleeson).