Gabriel Byrne’s one man show, written and performed by him, is an adaptation of his best-selling memoir, which was published in 2021. His performance, open and sincere, funny and sad, is a meditation on his childhood and has the feeling of a confession.
72 years old now, Byrne recounts and enacts moments from his working-class youth in Dublin: a visit to a cinema, tea in a posh hotel, a caning by a brutal maths teacher, a ride on a bus with Brendan Behan. There are instant vignettes of people he bumps into on the street and an amusing imitation on the way amateur actors take curtain calls.
As a boy, he had wanted to be a priest. He gives a disturbing account of his 12-year-old self being seduced by a paedophile priest. He also gives a brutally honest description of his alcoholism, when waking one morning on the street and finding himself bedded down with a complete stranger and having no recollection of how he and she got to be there.
Byrne worked as a plumber, dishwasher and toilet attendant. He found a better life when he joined an amateur theatre group, which would lead to a small role on Irish TV, which would lead to a distinguished career on stage, film and television. He has appeared in more than 80 films, including The Usual Suspects and Miller’s Crossing.
His first Hollywood role was in the 1983 all-star television mini-series, Wagner, starring Richard Burton, his idol. They got drunk together. Byrne asked him what fame was like and Burton said it was like being inside a box with people on the outside beating on it.
There will be, undoubtedly, many people, leaving the theatre, deciding, if they have not already done so, to read Byrne’s memoir
Act quickly. Walking with Ghosts finishes this Saturday 17 September. Byrne will then be performing in New York from October to December.
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