I'm now old enough to play my grandmother, Kathleen Behan

She said, “Isn’t he lovely? Lovely manners. Lend me your arm, Janet. I’ll just pop to the toilet while he’s gone, freshen myself up.” Then, with a girly, winsome smile, “Not that I suppose he cares!” Ninety-three, partially blind with an artificial hip but she still had an eye for the fellas. Her death, a couple of years after that visit, upset me terribly – not just because she meant so much to me but because, such was her spirit, it had simply never occurred to me that she would, or even could, die.
At the back end of the last century Mother of All the Behans was made into a stage play by Peter Sheridan, with Rosaleen Linehan, and then in a later production, Eileen Pollock, playing Kathleen. I saw both performances and they were both excellent, hard to follow. In recent years I’d looked in the mirror and wondered if it was now time to think about following them, so when I was asked if I’d do something for our local Wordfest, I re-read Dad’s book and asked director Jessica Higgs, who’d previously worked with me on my solo show Why Shouldn’t I Go, if she’d help.

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