Mother of All the Behans – a captivating Imelda May lights up a careful retelling of the Behan family story (Grand Opera House until Saturday 23 August)

Rich in nostalgia, Imelda May’s powerful vocals light up Mother of All the Behans. Charting the ups and downs in the life of Kathleen Behan, the one-woman show begins with Kathleen Behan in her nineties living in a home run by the Little Sisters of the Poor.

A bed-ridden rendition of The Red Flag pins her life-long socialist colours to the mast before racing back to her childhood in the late 1800s. On-stage pianist Sean Gilligan skilfully decorates some of the more whimsical numbers like Mrs. Hooligan’s Christmas Cake. We learn that Kathleen’s brother Peadar Kearney composed the original English lyrics of The Soldiers Song.

Peter Sheridan’s play (adapted from Brian Behan’s book) sails through Irish independence and the World Wars. By 1916, Kathleen was a courier passing messages between the barriers and hints at a deeper friendship with Michael Collins (eyerolling as she describes him being “as broad as he was wide”).

We learn of the tough times bringing up children while second husband Stephen Behan was incarcerated in Kilmainham Jail for his role in the Irish Civil War. His first view of son Brendan was from a prison window, looking down at Kathleen holding Brendan up from the street. In all, Kathleen had seven children.

The social history continues with the family moving from north side across the river to better but more isolated accommodation in Crumlin. The plight of the working class and the north/south (Dublin) divide are the strongest aspects of the early part of Sheridan’s script. The second act is as much about third son Brendan as it is about Kathleen, and it feels like the script deliberately swerves a warts and all approach and sticks to a sanitised version of the family history.

After the interval, the family’s republican sympathies and activism are less guarded and a romanticism takes over that reckons “there’s no loss greater than a loss of freedom” minutes after noting that son Brendan was sentenced to 14 years for the attempted murder of two Garda detectives, an act that could have resulted in the loss of two lives. Brendan went on to be a poet, novelist, acclaimed playwright, and alcoholic.

Having enjoyed May’s take on The Old Alarm Clock, another song from The Dubliners (The Auld Triangle) remembers the conditions in prison as “the old triangle went jingle jangle / all along the banks of the Royal Canal”.

The show finishes somewhat abruptly after the death of son Brendan and husband Stephen. While May delightfully milks the audience with her evocative rendition of Molly Malone, it feels like Kathleen’s reflections have been foreshortened.

The choreography gently circles around the simple set, though there are some jolting transitions back from younger times to frail Kathleen. The focused lighting in some scenes is overly stark, leaving May’s face shining out from the stage like a lighthouse.

Songstress Imelda May delivers a captivating performance, enlivening the script with accents and asides, and bringing her vocal talent to bear on the songs that pepper her warm monologues. On Monday evening, she also offered a great ad lib when an audience member’s lingering phone alarm interrupted the second act.

Verdant Productions’ Mother of All the Behans finishes its tour with this week’s run at the Grand Opera House (until Saturday 23 August).

Photo credit: Ros Kavanagh 

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