My memory is of visiting the Abbey Theatre, as a schoolboy, with my father for a performance of Shadow of a Gunman, my first serious theatre experience. That 1950 production was directed by Ria Mooney with Harry Brogan and May Craig in the cast.
The memory is connected in my mind with my father’s association with the Abbey and the Peacock in particular. Victor Brown was an artist who illustrated numerous Cuala Press publications including a number of Broadsides, working with WB Yeats, Jack Yeats and others. He was a cartoonist for the Irish Press – ‘Bee’ – and designed the 1941 Easter Rising commemoration stamp. He worked as a designer with Austin Clarke and the Dublin Verse Speaking Society and the Lyric Theatre Company. He designed the stage set for a Peacock production of Clarke’s The Plot is Ready in 1943.