Actor Bryan Murray, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s, is part of a unique theatrical experiment at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin
Michael J McDonagh reports
The Alzheimer Society of Ireland’s (ASI) Alzheimer’s Tea Day 2023 fundraising campaign with Bryan Murray and Una Crawford-O’Brien (Rolling News ie)BRYAN Murray (73) is probably best known to most of the television-watching public as the lovable rogue Flurry Knox in The Irish RM series broadcast on Channel 4 in Britain. The highly successful show ran from 1983 to 1985, and established Murray as a major name on the airwaves.
Then, in a radical change of role he found himself being buried under the patio slabs of Brookside when he played the part of Trevor Jordache. Although he only appeared in eleven episodes of the hugely popular and highly-rated soap, he became a familiar face to many.
From a Dublin tenement childhood, Bryan Murray started his long career at the Abbey Theatre and it would be fair to say he has always been in demand, playing a variety of roles over the decades. He co-created and co-devised the ITV series Perfect Scoundrels which ran for three years, and has co-written two musicals.
About three years ago Murray was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and has now made theatre history by returning to perform at the Abbey while suffering himself from the disease.
As he has no short term memory; he can’t learn scripts effectively. So his career was over until playwright Deirdre Kinahan created a new production, An Old Song, Half Forgotten especially for him. It highlights the many problems and vicissitudes associated with Alzheimer’s.
Bryan Murray is now able to take to the stage he loves with his lines being fed to him through an earpiece by another actor, Darragh Feehely. This means Bryan can play the role of James O’Brien a veteran actor with Alzheimer’s, in this courageous theatrical experiment.
This technique has never been tried before and effectively each production for Bryan it is a new and fresh performance — he has no memory of the script and will react to and interpret the off-stage prompts as he hears them on the night.
It’s basically a first night every night; indeed, winging it every time.
Bryan is being supported with this unique project not just by his co-actor Matthew Malone, playing his younger on stage alter ego, but also by director Louise Lowe, who keeps any delay between the actors as brief as possible.
Bryan Murray has the daunting challenge of taking in the lines and then using his innate proven acting skills to convincingly express the sentiment in a natural flow for the audience.
This experiment is also being supported by the entire team at the Abbey Theatre, and, crucially by his partner the actor Una Crawford O’Brien.
I became friends with Bryan on location when producing the music for The Irish RM series and he was playing the incorrigible character Flurry Knox. He later hosted another of my projects, the video A Song for Ireland
Although we had not spoken for a while we talked of about this project as well as The Irish RM, working with Beryl Reid and Peter Bowles
Speaking about his current show, he said: “We opened last night and it was fantastic. We got a standing ovation at the end . . . .. amazing, an uproar. At the very end of that we went out to the bar and found that most of the people who were in the theatre were actually waiting in the bar to have a drink and chat with me and all the rest of us. It was great. Deirdre Kinahan knows my situation. She has written it so well; she’s remarkable.
“It doesn't, stay with you for a full day, Alzheimer’s. You find a couple of moments, three or four moments in a day when you got Alzheimer's that's the reason I have to find out where does that bus come from or stuff like that. And you just have to work that out. It's not it's not really pleasant to have but it's not the end of the world.”
Until May 6
The Abbey Theatre
Dublin
