Visceral and realistic, these plays are often autobiographical and portray the life of Behan's fellow men in all their distress and glory. ( )

The first two plays in this collection, The Hostage and The Quare Fellow, are essential components in the Irish literary canon, just as much as Yeats or Joyce. They have a very strong mood about them, a tangible feeling of dreadful tension lurking under Behan's wry and distinct humor.

Richard's Cork Leg, his unfinished final play, seems not so much a successor to the style of its predecessors as it does an imitation. Behan's efforts here seem forced, as if he were just recycling trademarks, unable to give them substance. The short plays here do not have much room to breathe, with Moving Out being the best of the attempts and The Big House being a jumbled and forgettable mess of jagged plot and uninspired dialogue.

This volume is necessary simply because it's all of Behan's dramatic work, of which there is not much, and one might as well examine the whole of it. Take the first two plays, and consider the rest of the material here a bonus. ( )

Bad Books 625