A very simple and straightforward episode this week – Dara reads a lengthy unabridged extract from Marlon Brando’s autobiography – Songs My Mother Taught Me, published in 1994. Brando’s voice is frank and accessible and he shares his thoughts on acting, fame, and various female lovers during the time of his emergence as America’s most captivating actor. He also speaks about being a damaged child and the difficulty he had trying to shake off feelings of worthlessness.
Another distinctive male voice is that of the Irish poet Paul Durcan. Perhaps most commonly connected to his comic surreality, there’s still an unmistakable humanity to Durcan’s writing, especially in his confessional and vulnerable masculinity and his no-nonsense rebuttals of Catholic hypocrisy. Dara delights in concluding the episode by reading three of his poems.