Applause at playwright’s ‘final curtain call’

THE late writer, Hugh Leonard, received the traditional applause of the theatre world at his funeral mass in Dalkey yesterday at what mourners were told was his “final curtain call”.

The large congregation composed of many familiar faces from the Irish stage and screen heard the prolific author described as “acerbic, waspish and satiric” but also as “warm, affectionate and wickedly funny”.

Mourners at the Church of the Assumption in Dalkey also heard how it was Leonard’s dying wish that he would be reconciled with the people he had fallen out with over the years.