Visiting Hour

An elderly man drifts through the stories of his life, and his memories are a mix of the vivid and the uncertain. Some of what he describes may never have happened, and he may not have known the people he talks about. He moves between moods, sometimes funny, sometimes bitter, sometimes tender, as though he were dreaming. One recurring image is a childhood moment when he lifted his daughter and swung her on a garden gate, held safe in his arms.

His daughter stands outside his window, keeping the distance the pandemic demands, and her recollections often clash with his. Together they sing, bicker, and approach painful subjects. Their deep affection for each other keeps surfacing, even when they would rather it didn't, until the allotted visit comes to an end.

The play was written during the Covid-19 lockdown of 2020. It premiered in April 2021 at Dublin's Gate Theatre as part of the first online production in the theatre's Gate At Home series.