Brendan entertained with words … the sort of words that always kept his audience hungry … and kept them wondering just what would come next. 'He wrote,' said the poet Louis MacNeice, 'with plenty of hyperbole and emphasis. He was a man of humanity, gusto and formidable wit.' Formidable indeed. His totally disordered life consumed a measure of porter that should not obscure the fact that he was one of the great Irish wits—comparable indeed with Wilde or Shaw. (p. 7)

Brendan Behan was the talker talking. The writing was just a way of letting the world know what he was saying. There was hardly a story he told that he didn't write and there was hardly a quip he wrote that he didn't repeat and repeat, again and again. (pp. 7-8)

Yet behind [the witty Behan] was another side … the serious writer; the man who was conscious...