Brendan Behan

Brendan Behan was born in Dublin in 1923. Behan left school at fourteen but spent two years in Borstal and a further four (1942-46) in prison for political activities. Out of these experiences came his autobiography, Borstal Boy (1958), and his first stage play, The Quare Fellow (1954). His first radio plays were broadcast in Ireland in 1952 and he was writing a column for the Irish Press in 1954; but it was with the enormous success of Joan Littlewood’s London productions of The Quare Fellow (in 1956) and The Hostage (in 1958), combined with Behan’s much publicized drinking bouts, that he achieved international fame. A third play, Richard’s Cork Leg, was left incomplete at his death in 1964 and was edited and directed by Alan Simpson for the 1972 Dublin Theatre Festival.