Dion Boucicault

Character was a comic staple on stage: sentimental, buffoonish, cowardly but popular

The fictional story of a real-life spook is overshadowed by the tale’s lumbering biography. The result is a novel that lacks spirit

It was a year that energised the city, its artists and, most significantly, the public

Director Garry Hynes and her superb cast careful calibrate the tone of Boucicault’s melodrama