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The Review - THEATRE by ED BRAY
Published: 14 February 2008

Aidan Dooley writes and performs the role of Antarctic explorer Tom Crean

Celebrating the unsung hero

TOM CREAN; ANTARCTIC EXPLORER
New End Theatre

BORN in 1877 in Kerry, Ireland, Tom Crean figured in three out of four major British expeditions to the Antarctic and served under both Scott and Shackleton with great distinction.
In a show that began its life as an educational piece at the National Maritime Museum, Aidan Dooley affectionately regales the story of this unsung hero who was responsible for “the finest feat of individual heroism from the entire age of exploration”.
Crean ran away from home to join the Royal Navy at 15 years of age, and after serving his polar apprenticeship on Scott’s Discovery mission of 1901, returned on the ill-fated Terra Nova expedition in 1910.
He marched to within 150 miles of the South Pole and was one of the last men to see the Scott’s doomed party alive.
But in this true tale of derring-do, Crean faced his own formidable problems on the march back to base camp, for which he later received the Albert Medal for bravery.
In 1914 he joined Shackleton’s Endurance expedition and survived for months trapped on the ice floes after their ship was crushed.
Forced to eat their own huskies, Crean again distinguished himself in the team’s 800-mile rescue bid across the South Atlantic – one of the fiercest seas on the planet.
In true Irish storytelling tradition, Dooley paints a vivid picture of a different age, when explorers seemed not to just ‘touch the void’, but whole-heartedly embrace it as a way of life.
As one of Crean’s co-explorers said: “To die is the easy thing. To struggle to live is what true heroism is about.”
Until March 16
0870 0330 2733

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