Take Me Away

Brendan works nights as a security guard. He likes to spend his days alone with his computer. A visit from his middle brother, Andy, is clearly unwelcome, the more so as he brings news that their father and younger brother, Kev, are also on their way. Eddie, the father, is bent on persuading his three sons to visit their mother, who may or may not be in hospital, who may or may not even still live in the same house as Eddie. As the wrangling continues, each one's true circumstances become ever more vague. Where precisely are Andy's wife and child? And does Kev really have that whizzy job in IT? And what is going on with their mother? "And she wasn't a very loving mother. I mean she never made rice krispie buns - do you know what I mean?" Take Me Away is a dark but very funny comedy about the disintegration of a family of feckless chancers and no-hopers. It stands in an honourable Irish tradition stretching from Synge and O'Casey through Brendan Behan to present-day writers like Billy Roche and Conor McPherson. It is premiered in Dublin on 16 February 2004 by the respected Irish theatre company, Rough Magic, who developed the play through their new writing programme.