![]() ![]() ![]() They compellingly rescue his work for stage and television from obscurity and think through how it sits alongside his fiction. The 20 essays in this substantive collection act out Flann O’Brien in a new way for readers by focusing on his drama and TV scripts and foregrounding his deep-seated preoccupation with the stage. Both senses very patently apply to the counter-currents of O’Brien’s writings. The Oxford Dictionary defines acting out as performing or translating into action or as misbehaving or behaving antisocially. ![]() A disturbingly surreal painting by David O’Kane, Acting Out - Old Philip Mathers, referencing The Third Policeman, adorns the cover. The theatricality of O’Brien constitutes the central area of inquiry of this volume of essays. But many too discovered him through performances, the much-loved shows of Val O’Donnell and Eamon Morrissey, the avant-garde adaptations by the Blue Raincoat company and the many stagings of the novels by Dublin theatres. The Best of Myles, a volume of excerpts, was once the entry point for readers to this author. Thanks to fresh scholarly interest his posthumous output continues to expand while shedding none of its maverick nature or subversive wit. From being an artistic outlier Flann O’Brien has become, surprisingly, a steady focus of academic research in recent years. ![]()
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