Peadar Lamb in The Country Boy

His photograph depicts Peadar Lamb as Curly Maher in the Abbey Theatre production of The Country Boy. The play written by John Murphy was his only foray into playwriting. The scenes take place in the kitchen of the Maher home, a small farmhouse, located in Mayo. Curly is stuck at home living on the family farm, yearning to move on. His wants to get married to his sweetheart Eileen and find a life of his own but is obedient to his father’s wishes. His brother Eddie by contrast has moved to America, and on a visit home upsets Curly’s equilibrium by presenting alternative options to the life seemingly set out ahead of him. The dilemmas presented to Curly proved very popular with Abbey audiences at the Queen’s Theatre, so much so it had over 100 performances between 1959 and 1965.

Peadar Lamb’s first performances at the Abbey Theatre was in the Christmas Pantomime Sonia agus an Bodach in 1954. On 29 December of this year Peadar goes into rehearsal for our forth-coming production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare.