Paul Thompson’s The Last Donnelly Standing at Blyth Festival

Gil Garratt as Robert Donnelly in "The Last Donnelly Standing" at the Blyth Festival August 11 to September 2, 2016
Gil Garratt as Robert Donnelly in “The Last Donnelly Standing” at the Blyth Festival August 4 to September 2, 2016 (Photo by Terry Manzo courtesy The Blyth Festival.)

Paul Thompson‘s new play The Last Donnelly Standing at the Blyth Festival (August 4 to September 2) tells the tale of Robert Donnelly, one of the surviving family members of The Biddulph Tragedy.

Co-creator Gil Garratt stars as Robert Donnelly in this one-man show, a fitting sequel to Paul Thompson’s epic Outdoor Donnellys, presented at the Blyth Festival in 2001, 2002, and 2004.

Gil Garratt as Robert Donnelly in "The Last Donnelly Standing" (Photo by Terry Manzo courtesy The Blyth Festival.)
Gil Garratt as Robert Donnelly in “The Last Donnelly Standing” (Photo by Terry Manzo courtesy The Blyth Festival.)

In The Donnelly Documents: An Ontario Vendetta, James Reaney notes that “what follows here is an account of the events that culminated in the killing of the ‘somewhat notorious Donnelly family’ [4 February 1880] and what happened to the survivors, William and Robert Donnelly, up to their departure from Lucan in 1883. Indeed, subsequent events merit another volume: their arrival in their new home in Glencoe; the fact that the Donnelly brothers retained their father’s farm in Biddulph; that in 1905, Robert came back to live in Lucan, along with his nephew, James Michael, son of the ill-fated Michael Donnelly…” (See The Donnelly Documents: An Ontario Vendetta, page xv.)

For more about the play, see Joe Belanger in The London Free Press and JBNBlog.

A true fan has provided a pre-show video of Gil Garratt in character as Robert Donnelly here: https://www.facebook.com/james.reaney.14?fref=pb&hc_location=friends_tab&pnref=friends.all

LastDonnelly

See also “James Reaney on writing about the Donnellys”: https://jamesreaney.com/2019/01/04/james-reaney-on-writing-about-the-donnellys/