What Good Is Looking Well, When You’re Rotten On The Inside?

By Emma O’ Grady

Galway Theatre Festival, Dublin Fringe Festival, & Bealtaine Festival 2017

One month before his death, retired civil servant and man of few words Paddy O’Grady had a sudden urge to talk. Using a portable cassette tape recorder, he recorded 15 hours of material: stories about leprechauns, aliens and lonely pharmacists; absurdist political satire; musings on life, love and death; radio shows with advertisements for products that never existed; ballads and poetry; and memories of life as a civil servant.

Paddy’s granddaughter, Emma O’Grady, later discovered he had written plays, poems and short stories in the 1950s and until now his work has been without an audience. This one-woman show - created with multiple directors - examines the fractured and fragile personas we present to the world, who we might be behind them and what we could be instead. What Good is Looking Well When You’re Rotten on the Inside? is a piece about emotional inheritance and grief for wasted creativity that serves as both a tribute and a warning.

Written and performed by Emma O'Grady

Sound design by Rob Moloney

Lighting design by Eoin Winning

Costume design by Triona Lillis

Set Design by Emma O’ Grady and Rob Moloney