Writer: Billy Roche
Director: Peter McCamley
In collaboration with Ad Personam Cultural Events Ltd, Gary Lydon Productions brings Billy Roche’s Of Mornington to Smock Alley, “Ireland’s oldest, newest theatre,” on the banks of the river Liffey. Fresh from its two night run in Wexford, where Lydon got his breakthrough role in Roche’s first play The Boker Poker Club (A Handful of Stars) 40 years ago, the playwright’s most recent play now showcases the actor’s talented son, James Doherty O’Brien alongside promising writer/actress Siofra O’Meara.
An infamous “magic … one off” snooker cue, lovingly and meticulously hand crafted by an old man and found in a “jumble shop in Mornington” hangs in pride of place on the wall of ‘The Dock Cafe’. (Excellent set by designer Mark Redmond.) Amateur player Mike Bradley is drawn towards it as soon as he enters and waitress Shauna is soon regaling him with exploits of its current owner, former World Champion Phil Athens who lives in the flat above.
But the young man knows all about Athens and how the legendary player is now reduced to giving exhibitions at local snooker hall ‘The Alamo’ and signing autographs for a fiver – free to children mind you, he is a regular “Hans Christian Anderson”. The adage “Never meet your heroes” applies in spades when Athens rebuffs a request from the aspirational youth in a nasty way. Channelling Al Pacino he sneeringly asks why he would lend his cue to Bradley’s pal, the “washout” and “prick” Benny Talbot in his challenge against new kid on the block, Oriental Irish man, Eamon Lee.
Denigrating Bradley, Athens calls him a “ a proper little rat”, “a half-reared rat”, and “a foster boy” who “learned to play in darkened recreation rooms”. The Champion recognised these characteristics because he was a borstal boy himself, as harrowingly outlined in his biography ‘Stained Glass Windows’. Bradley retaliates robustly and exposes Athens for having previously taken advantage of his mentor, ‘Jackie St. John’, beating the drunken alcoholic in a match to take possession of the legendary ‘magic cue’. The cue wasn’t the only thing St. John’s protege coveted – a traitorous Athens had his old friend’s wife Anne within his sights too.
Meanwhile, Shauna, or Sheena as Athens disparagingly calls her, makes hot drinks, serves food, dodges phone calls (from an irate, married ex-lover) and misses and grieves for her 12 year old son, Colm who chooses to live with his father over her. She cares for curmudgeonly Athens, tolerating his jibes and is compassionate towards Bradley who is clearly down on his luck, despite him having stolen from her. It is interior design student Shauna who will proffer a possible future and way ahead for the unlikely threesome.
Roche employs some nice dramatic techniques to engage and instruct his audience. Lydon expertly adopts Al Pacino’s gravelly tones and in echoes of Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade’s treatment of Charlie Simms (Chris O’Donnell) in the film Scent of a Woman, he progresses from belittling Bradley to mentoring him. Further to above, the arc of St. John, guiding a young Athens, travels full circle when the latter takes on to mentor Bradley. There is a promise in the air that the ‘magic cue’ may be similarly passed down too.
The Alamo Snooker Hall is itself a character in the piece. Like an old-fashioned showdown or gunfight at dawn, Athens at first declines the challenge to a match from Lee at the venue only to accede at the final hour. At one point he references Charlton Heston in Ben-Hur (“The blind will see and the lame will walk” Matthew 11:5) who turned down John Wayne’s offer to play the lead role in his famous 1960 movie The Alamo because Heston had only just finished filming the biblical epic.
On the downside, some elements feel superfluous. References to a litany of characters in the first scene, i.e. the librarian, Mrs Grogan, Eamon Lee, Benny Talbot, Jackie St. John, a married lover, Tommy Day & Ray Flynn as well as our introduction to Mike, Shauna and Phil is a lot to take in at once. It’s hard to see the point of an absent cafe owner (Mrs Grogan) who has outdated rules concerning women callers to the flat upstairs. An out of view melee involving Shauna’s unseen married ex, after a dance hosted by Tommy Day and Ray Flynn’s Quartet, doesn’t appear to move the plot along in any real way. The play might benefit from a little trimming/dramaturgical editing to make it more concise.
Watch out for James Doherty O’Brien, he is as natural an actor as I have seen in a long time. He brings a deceptive ease to the role. Siofra O’Meara holds the attention of the audience as she runs the gamut of emotions experienced by beleaguered waitress and abandoned mother, Shauna. Gary Lydon heads the cast with a very sure pair of hands. A consummate professional, his experience is evident in how he listens and responds to O’Brien and O’Meara (not reacting to a line before another has finished it). He is also generous in how he stands stock still as the others deliver their lines, allowing the ensemble to share the spotlight evenly. And who knew Peader Kearney of The Banshees of Inisherin or Patrick Murray from The Clinic could sing!
Reviewed 17th April 2026.
