Duddy still centre stage

HE lights dim and the audience is hushed. Former middleweight contender Bobby Cassidy is led to the front of the stage.

Gingerly, he sits on a stool, clears his throat and starts to read from Rod Serling’s “Requiem for a Heavyweight”.

The 67-year-old speaks slowly, his voice laden down by a 17-year career and the alcoholism that hampered his time in the ring before almost destroying him and his family. After he finishes his monologue he leaves the stage and the part-tragic, part-redemptive story of his life begins to take shape in this Off-Broadway production of “Kid Shamrock”.