The Last Campaign
Directed by Donald McWhinnieWriters: Hugh Leonard, Jennifer Johnston (novel "The Captains and the Kings")
1978
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Frank Finlay . . . . . . . . . . Mr Prendergast
Daniel Figgis . . . . . . . . . . Diarmid
Dermott Kelly . . . . . . . . . . Sean
Michael Barrington . . . . . . . . . . Mr. Evers
Jeanne Watts . . . . . . . . . . Mrs Evers
Patrick McAlinney . . . . . . . . . . Father Mulcahy
Chris Gannon . . . . . . . . . . Mr Toorish
Brenda Fricker . . . . . . . . . . Mrs Toorish
Oliver Maguire . . . . . . . . . . Sergeant Devenny
Sylvia Marriot . . . . . . . . . . Clare Prendergast
Robin Hooper . . . . . . . . . . Alexander Prendergast
Susan Macready . . . . . . . . . . Sarah Prendergast
Zara Nutley . . . . . . . . . . Mrs Prendergast
Barry Bowman . . . . . . . . . . Young Charles
Daniel Figgis is an Irish Composer, producer, curator and intermedia artist. He's a former member of Virgin Prunes.
www.danielfiggis.com
He was born on Sandford Road, Ranelagh, Dublin, Ireland on 2 May 1961. Before graduating from Trinity College Dublin with a philosophy degree and prior to his musical career he was a successful child actor - a youthful career that got off to a galloping start with Eugene McCabe's Swift at the world-renowned Abbey Theatre alongside Micheál MacLíammóir and under the direction of the legendary Tyrone Guthrie (1969), swiftly followed by Sean Cotter's Waiting for Godot as The Boy alongside Peter O'Toole and Donal McCann (1969). O'Toole later directed his own interpretation with both Figgis and McCann onboard for the Nottingham Playhouse, England (1971) while Figgis continued to work with the Abbey until 1975 notching up appearances with Ray McAnally, Cyril Cusack, Niall Buggy and John Kavanagh amongst many others.
Simultaneously, a burgeoning TV and film profile developed through his involvement in projects as varied as George Schaefer's Emmy Award-winning A War of Children for CBS TV (1972), BBC TV's adventure serial Sleepers On The Hill (1974), Joseph Strick's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man with a score by future Figgis favourite Stanley Myers (1978) and Anglia TV's The Last Campaign with Frank Finlay (1978). For the latter, Time Out London named him child actor of the year.
Jennifer Johnston's 1972 novel The Captain and the Kings was adapted for television as The Last Campaign (1978) with Frank in the main role as Mr Prendergast.
Mr Prendergast, an elderly Anglo-Irishman, is living out his last years in the decaying splendour of his family mansion. As his mind wanders through the gloom he finds it peopled with memories of his neglected wife, his pale shadow of a father, his icily glamorous mother and Alexander, the son she so jealously loved, killed in the First World War.
With only his ill-tempered alcoholic gardener left to attend to him, Mr Prendergast is content to pass his days in such ghostly company. Until young Diarmid arrives, keen-eyed and carrot-haired, to disperse the gathering darkness with curiosity, and the promise of friendship.
Born in Dublin in 1930, Jennifer Johnston's first published novel was The Captains and the Kings (1972). Since then, she has published many more novels, including Shadows on our Skin (1977), which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction, and The Old Jest (1979), set in the War of Independence and winning the 1979 Whitbread Novel Award. The Old Jest was later filmed as The Dawning, starring Anthony Hopkins. She lives in County Derry and her novels have been published in many countries.