ABSTRACT
The Non-Stop Connolly Show was probably the final embodiment of the dream which D’Arcy and Arden had shared since that fateful evening in the Earl’s Court garden nearly twenty years before. Less than three months after the first performance of The Non-Stop Connolly Show, the film Caoineadh Airt Ui Laoire was premiered in Dublin. It was directed by Bob Quinn and had John Arden in a leading role. It was based on a famous and moving eighteenth-century lament, written by Eileen, widow of the eponymous hero. Arden points out that where the ‘play-writer’ needs a director to make his creation effective on the stage, the ‘playwright’ uses all the tools of the theatre to create something which the director meddles with at his peril. The unresolved libel suit was still hanging over Arden and D’Arcy.
