Sight Nor Sound Theatre

The Good Crank with Rose Henderson

by Alan McMonagle

The Good Crank is a one-person comedy-drama told by a woman certain in her belief that she is never going to die. Treading a blurry line between humour and pathos; hijinks and heartache; belonging and marginalisation, The Good Crank is an exploration of the flip-flop existence of an older woman at odds with the world she has grown into. 

Kitty Clog - played by Dún Laoghaire's own Rose Henderson, star of Father Ted and Fair City - lives by herself in Single Street, the oldest street in town. She’ll say hello to tomorrow when it arrives, but she’s still got a little time for yesterday.

She’s also got a few people in her head. There’s neighbour Phyllis, suddenly aware of her mortality and determined to ply Kitty with industrial quantities of questionable wine. There’s neighbour Jack, self-anointed inventor of the iPod and never slow to remind Kitty about what a crank she is. Then there’s the mystery of what happened to the one and only man in Kitty’s life. Here one day, gone the next, and without so much as a thank you for the memories.

With her singular attitude towards everything, Kitty doles out the warp and woof of her life, speculating here, throwing out a barb there. And it is while in the throes of her daily commentaries that the spectre of memory starts to niggle at her. So much so that Kitty is compelled to make one final effort to uncover the truth of her vanished man’s whereabouts.

Sight Nor Sound Theatre explores the intersections of storytelling forms, from stage to audio drama. Led by award-winning director Gorretti Slavin and writer Alan McMonagle, their work has featured on RTÉ Radio 1 and in theatres nationwide. The Good Crank debuted at the 2024 Galway Theatre Festival.