Ellen McCourt reckons that her late husband Frank's book Angela Ashes is ultimately triumphal – thanks to his unique take on storytelling.
Angela's Ashes the Musical is running now at Dublin's Bord Gáis Energy Theatre until July 30, and Ellen spoke to RTÉ Entertainment about the show, explaining its background.
"Well, a young man in Derby, England, of all places, read the book when he was about 15," she explains. "His mother had been reading it first and he observed her emotional rollercoaster of a reaction to that book, and he picked it up.
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"And it really stuck with him. And later on he set the book to music. When I initially saw it, it was in a kind of a student production, in Derby. This was probably three or four years ago. Not the grand, professional premiere that we will have here in Limerick and Dublin and Belfast. That's how it started.
"The story itself is not so unique," she adds. "I think it was Frank's unique voice. I think he discovered the voice of a child, and telling the story through the eyes of a child, I think made a tremendous difference in how it was received.
"He just had a marvellous turn of phrase, and it was, by turns, happy, sad, hilarious, and ultimately triumphal."
Originally from California, Ellen was working in television public relations in 1989 when she met and fell in love with Frank, a New York-based schoolteacher who grew up in poverty in Limerick.
Despite contrasting backgrounds and an age gap of more than 20 years they later married and lived happily together until Frank died in 2009.
"If you really think about, Frank is from a different generation than I am, from a different part of the world, and yet we somehow came together, despite our age difference," Ellen recalls.
"I think I was probably mature for my age, while he was eternally boyish and youthful.
I was no spring! When we got married I was almost 40. It's not as though I was a 19-year-old marrying a 50-year-old. I was a mature person by the time we got married.
"At the time, my friends were saying: so you're marrying a retired high school teacher? And I said: Yeah! One should always marry for love."
Angela's Ashes the Musical is at the Bord Gais Energy Theatre until July 30.
