Brendan Behan's Borstal boy

by Frank McMahon

Winner of the Tony Award and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play

Genres: Plays

118 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1971

Reviews

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

The thoroughly Irish writer's autobiographical account of his late teen's IRA and prison life.
Adapted for the stage by Frank McMahon. Hardback script
Joyous and sorrowing.

[David Sterritt]

Brendan Behan was a well-known Irish cutup several decades ago, and I’ve greatly enjoyed reading “Borstal Boy” in the stage adaptation by Frank McMahon, who scored a major hit with it in Dublin in the late 1960s and on Broadway shortly thereafter. It’s a lively play full of Irish Republican fervor drawn from Behan’s own career as a young explosives carrier and subsequent stretch in a juvenile prison that appears to have been vastly more humane than I’d expect an American lockup to have been. An intelligent blend of political agitprop and humanistic drama. Good stuff.

[Brian McCann · Rating 2 out of 5]

So difficult to read, though there are some glimpses of the magic it must have been onstage.

[David Eden · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting although somewhat chaotic adaptation of the book. Huge cast, mainly young men. Not sure how this would work on the stage, although the stage directions are very explicit. A bit unsatisfying.

[Joe Marino · Rating 3 out of 5]

A young man fed up with life joins the IRA and is about to set off a bomb and is caught and becomes a Borstal boy. Over three years, he softens and finds joy in life after being released from prison. The play is littered with Irish songs.

[Bryan Edgington · Rating 4 out of 5]

Would love to see the play.