A Whistle In the Dark

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A Whistle in the Dark is a play by Tom Murphy that premiered in 1961 at Stratford East Theatre in London having been rejected in no uncertain terms by the Abbey Theatre, Dublin. Murphy was twenty-four years old at the time. It tells the story in three acts of the climactic confrontation between Michael, the oldest of the Carney sons, and his father and brothers, a brawling, hard-drinking, criminal gang of Irish immigrants living and working in Coventry. A powerful portrayal of tribal violence and the devastation it brings in its wake in spite of attempts to stand against it, it remains Murphy's best known and most performed play. Its influence can be seen in works such as Harold Pinter's The Homecoming, Gary Mitchell's In A Little World Of Our Own and Rod Wooden's Your Home In The West.