Regaling the audience with funny stories, anecdotes and a slice of theatre history, Tomas MacAnna is in great form at a tribute evening to his years as artistic director at The Abbey Theatre.
A special performance of A Life by Hugh Leonard is followed by a speech from Joe Dowling, who has flown in from Minnesota and is thoroughly enjoying this stroll down memory lane.
It is a night for reminiscing and as MacAnna is slightly overwhelmed by the whole evening - it's not often that someone sits and listens to his life's work and passion being so enthused about from the stage of the National Theatre. The MacAnna family is all there: as' his wife, Caroline, is accompanied by his son, Ferdia MacAnna - with his wife Kathryn Holmquist - and granddaughter Sienna. His daughters Darina MacAnna and Fiona MacAnna are here too, as are Fiona's husband James Hickey, chairman of the Abbey, and their children.
It's been a good few years since playwright Hugh Leonard has sat here and watched his work, A Life, on the Abbey stage. Playwright Bernard Farrell is very moved by the evening, and says it's a real trip down memory lane for many of the audience: "The crowd is just buzzing". Peter Sheridan is here with his wife, Sheila - both just back from a film festival in Sicily, then the Galway Film Fleadh, where they were promoting Sheridan's new film adaptation of The Borstal Boy.
An Abbey addict since the late 1930s is how 80-year-old Darach Connolly describes himself. "We go back years," says Connolly, one of MacAnna's oldest friends. He is here with his wife, Joan, and both are fresh off the Grange golf course.
Even MacAnna's former teacher, 98-year-old Tomas O'Farrell, has made the journey from Dundalk to the Abbey.