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Aidan Dooley says playing Tom Crean has been ‘an amazing journey’ |
Warming to the role of ice explorer
Intrepid actor Aidan Dooley is set to bring the story of unsung South Pole hero Tom Crean to the New End Theatre, writes Gerald Isaaman
HE may be an Irishman himself, from County Galway, but Aidan Dooley had never heard of Tom Crean, from nearby Dingle on the west coast. Yet Crean was an incredible explorer who went in search of the South Pole with both the doomed heroes Scott and Shackleton.
And Crean returned after facing the worst of hazards time and again. Yet it took the recent publication of a biography, appropriately called Unsung Hero, for the world to hear of the remarkable man who crawled 36 miles over the ice to save the lives of two compatriots.
Historians now describe Crean’s feat during the Terra Nova expeditions with Shackleton aboard Endurance, first in 1901 and, amazingly, again in 1914-1916, as “the finest feat of individual heroism from the entire age of exploration”.
For the past five years Aidan Dooley has been stepping into the frozen shoes of the iceman, to tell his saga on stage in a one-man performance that has earned him awards at the Edinburgh Fringe and in New York, and which has taken him round the world.
Now Tom Crean Antarctic Explorer, written and performed by 45-year-old Aidan, is coming to the New End Theatre, Hampstead, for a six-week season, starting on February 5.
Taking on the role of another man is equally an act of endurance, according to Aidan.
“It has been an amazing sort of journey for me, to be honest,” Aidan tells me. “It’s been one organic event at a time, not some five-year plan. It has just grown. And sometimes, when you are look at five or six weeks in London, it fills me with serious, daunting dread.
“It is a bit of an endurance to ensure that I keep myself positive and not let the show down. Tom’s there very much as a ghost on my shoulder who serves as an inspiration and sometimes to give me a good kick up the bottom, you know, to keep me going.”
He would, of course, loved to have met Crean, who ran away from poverty, aged 15, to join the Royal Navy, and died in 1938, aged 61, at the South Pole Inn, the pub he built himself in County Kerry, where Aidan has performed his tribute show.
“I’ve met people very close to him, which was a very strong spiritual experience,” says Aidan. “I’ve met his daughters and godson and his grandchildren. I have become an extension of the family because they are very positive that I am bringing the story of their father and their grandfather in the form, all over the world.”
At least he doesn’t have to suffer the cold hell of Antarctica, his performance showing people the heavy layers of clothes the intrepid explorers wore on their expeditions. “I do get over-heated,” he admits. “But it is a great way of keeping slim. I call it my Tom Crean Diet.”
Aidan wanted to visit the South Pole but couldn’t afford to join a trip organised by the Tom Crean Society. “And then I’m not the best of sailors,” he confesses. “I may be a brave man but I don’t think I have the physical strength that these guys had.
“Maybe the reason why Scott and Shackleton did falter was because they allowed a certain element of negativity in their approach, having been so disappointed at not having reached the Pole before Amundsen.
“Tom Crean wasn’t like that. If you read any of his diaries, he was the type of bloke who was into positivity in the blackest of situations. He was a determined bloody Irishman, absolutely.”
Aidan believes his show conveys a message at a time when global warming might engulf the world. “I have to be true to Tom,” he insists. “But I make the point that if the ice pole melts then the sea level will rise by 200 feet around the world. But the main message is about the human spirit and the positivity of the human spirit, which we all still have even though we might feel we’re living in the most dire planet in the universe and facing depressing times.
“Tom epitomises for me the true strength of spiritual feeling. Your fellow human is always paramount. He would have done anything to save the lives of his fellow explorers. I find that uplifting and I hope the theatre audiences will also do so.”
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