BORN and bred in Maitland and dead by the age of just 21, boxer Les Darcy was one of Australia's first sporting superstars.
Fighting largely during World War 1, while still a teenager, Darcy won 52 of the 56 bouts he contested and was lured to America to make his fortune.
In The Les Darcy Show, written by Australian playwright Jack Hibberd, his life and times are presented like a celebratory Irish hooley.
The show is full of song, dance and boozing, with prominent characters, including his brutish father, Ned, and trainer and best mate, Mick Hawkins, retelling his story direct to the audience.
"It's a tragic tale, but not a tragic play," the show's director Cheryl Sovechles says.
The mother of four boys, Sovechles was drawn to Les Darcy's story as well as the period, in which so many young men perished, as it is about "a lad who didn't go to war but died anyway."
In fact, the mother and son relationship is pivotal to this drama, part of a complicated triangle also involving Les's hard-drinking father Ned, played by Newcastle Herald journalist, Scott Bevan.
Bevan, whose parents came from Maitland, and who made a 2017 documentary on Les Darcy, inhabits the character with conviction and bravado, showing a father pushing his son to succeed to fill his empty life with meaning.
One of seven children, Les, portrayed with strong physicality by Jarrod Sansom, was a good Catholic boy who, probably in reaction to his father's drunkenness, "drank only milk and sarsaparilla".
He also doted on his abused mother Marg (Leanne Guihot, also excellent), and, like Shane Warne more recently, rose from humble origins to become the world's best at his sport.
Like Warne, his life was mired in controversy, with the Australian public, stirred up by the media of the day, turning on Darcy, when he set off for America shortly before a referendum on the conscription of young men to serve in the First World War.
Like Warne too, he died way too early, and in his death, found redemption and an outpouring of love and grief.
Darcy died on May 24, 2017, in Memphis, Tennessee, from septicaemia, the result of an infection due to the loss of two teeth in a fight, months earlier.
He was farewelled from America by mass crowds in San Francisco, and back in Sydney, 250,000 people lined the route of his funeral procession.
Such a short life can be tricky to dramatise, but this production packs a lot in, with re-enactments of his fights in a boxing ring on stage and a compelling theatrical experience, borne of the Irish Australian diaspora.
"It was a challenge to direct,' Sovechles says, "and we've had an Irish dance teacher as well as a boxing consultant (Adam Soldo, who plays Les's trainer, Mick Hawkins) to get the style of the day accurate."
Soldo, whose grandfather boxed in the same era as Darcy, choreographed the fight scenes to capture the brutality of the early 20th century ring.
This included Les, donning long, emerald green shorts, thrusting and pivoting, his hands low and legs wide, as was the fashion of the day, beating the living daylights out of his opponents.
There's mateship and love in the mix too, with both Hawkins and Darcy's fiancee Winnie O'Sullivan, sweetly played by Pearl Nunn, following him to America and beside him when he died.
Ultimately, though, this is the tale of an inspirational Aussie battler, nicknamed "the Maitland wonder bub".
Darcy overcame huge odds to lift his family out of poverty and become a symbol of hope for those like him.
"His glove work was as honest as his smile", others comment of him in the play, who, ironically, was "never once in his pugilistic career...knocked out, except by his dear old Dad."
While The Les Darcy Show reflects modern issues like domestic violence and alcoholism, its main achievement is to capture a bygone era in Australian history.
"I'd like the audience to learn more about Les and enjoy a different form of theatre, and look into another time that belonged to us," Sovechles says. "It's us, we're local."
The Les Darcy Show runs at Newcastle Theatre Company from June 17 to July 2, Newcastle Herald readers can get two tickets for the price of one by calling 4952 4958 and quoting "Weekender".
