TOM CREAN ANTARCTIC EXPLORER. To 16 March.
London.
TOM CREAN ANTARCTIC EXPLORER
by Aidan Dooley.
New End Theatre 27 New End NW3 1JD To 16 March 2008.
Tue-Sat 7.30pm Mat Sat & Sun 3.30pm.
Runs 1hr 25min No interval.
TICKETS: 0870 033 2733.
www.newendtheatre.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 10 February.
Forgotten explorer in tip-top cold comfort form.
Tom Crean wasn’t officer class, and didn’t keep a diary. So he’s forgotten, except by fellow-Irishman Aidan Hooley who’s developed this piece from a 15-minute National Maritime Museum original.
Crean was born in a Kerry village in 1877, married a local girl and kept a pub there till his death in 1938. Amid this, he joined the Royal Navy at 15, subsequently going to Antarctica with Scott, twice, then Shackleton; “chalk and cheese” as leaders. A cough saved his life, making Scott decide against including him in the fated five for the final stage of his second Antarctic expedition.
Given the chance, Crean always ventured rather than stayed behind. He saved comrades’ lives and ended up with Shackleton in a lifeboat of the shattered Endurance, voyaging 800 miles in seas that could rip liners, then sliding down perilous slops on South Georgia into mist-filled abysms on makeshift toboggans.
Hooley’s Crean shows no sense of the heroic, playing-off the audience, occasionally ticking us off for English attitudes to his country. Good-humourdly encouraging audience coughers to coincide with his own splutter, he wins sympathy and enforces the significance of his cough.
Crean found in these expeditions opportunities for interdependence, the individual’s assertion of mutual responsibility which he also admired in the expedition leaders. But any stuffiness is blown away by the cheerfully garrulous fellow in front of us, incredibly energetic and giving a sense of reality to everything from how many layers of clothing to wear at -30Centigrade (too many can be fatal as too few) to tramping solo through blizzards to fetch base-camp help for stranded companions.
Presumably, the point is, in the cold continent that’s what you had to do. Crean shows no sense of pride, except perhaps when awarded the Albert medal by Edward VII (“My father’s medal,” the king whispered). For the rest Dooley’s manner aptly suggests a welcoming mine host warming up for a night’s chatter about local gossip.
Suitably, Dooley seems as offhand about his energetic performance as was Crean about his expeditions. Through this piece, the little man speaks, and shows how big he can be.
Tom Crean: Aidan Hooley.
Designers: Katy Eldridge, Michael Beagley.
Lighting: Pierce Kavanagh.
2008-02-12 12:19:50