WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE between a celebrity and a politician?

It may seem fairly obvious: Politicians are elected by and answerable to the public, whereas celebrities have followers, and entertain the public.

But in today’s world, where politicians are posting influencer-style content online, political rallies are starting to resemble concerts, and established political systems prove ineffectual in the face of disaster, a cynic might say that politics is increasingly becoming about entertainment too.

And celebrities themselves are becoming political candidates. Take Donald Trump, or Nina Carberry, or (briefly) Jim Gavin.

Enter stage left, Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch. No – literally.

When the lights came up for the opening night of Rex Ryan’s one-man show The Monk in the Ambassador Theatre in Dublin city centre last night, sitting in a large armchair in front of a prison-themed set was not Ryan, but Gerry Hutch himself.

For his theatrical debut, Hutch answered questions put to him by an omnipresent voice (presumably Ryan, who is the late Gerry Ryan’s son, in case you didn’t know) playing the role of a reporter asking him questions after his hypothetical election to the Dáil.

The play risks entering propaganda territory at this point. 

The irony was, the questions that Ryan’s floating reporter voice asked Hutch were so softball, that they could never have been anything other than fictional.

“So what can we expect from you as a representative?”

Hutch: “I’d be asking certain questions to certain ministers, and if they are telling me lies, I’d go straight back to the people and say these people are telling me lies. I asked them this question, they gave me that answer, and I know that’s porky pies”.

“Gerard, last question, after everything that’s happened, what advice would you give your younger self today?”

Hutch: “I wouldn’t get caught… That was a joke.”

So, what does the play itself have to say about it, the sprawling series of events, some of them very dark, that make up ‘everything that’s happened’ in the life of 62-year-old, infamous gangland figure, Gerry Hutch.

Ryan actually plays a convincing enough Hutch.

The narrative of the play is squeezed into the few minutes that Hutch spends in a holding cell before his trial in the Special Criminal Court, when he was found not guilty of the murder of David Byrne in 2023.

As played by Ryan, a reluctant Hutch barks at the audience at times, asking what it is they want to know, demanding to know which ‘truth’ they are looking for.

He starts with his difficult childhood in Summerhill, when his family had nothing other than “the clothes on our back”.

Ryan’s Hutch looks at photos of himself and the ‘Bugsy Malone’ crew in the 70s, and he describes a life of crime as an inevitable path for kids in those circumstances who wanted to make good.

He speaks about the horrible conditions he faced in Mountjoy as a young lad and then in St Patrick’s institution.

The Monk tells us that he’s not “whingeing” but that the way boys were treated in St Patrick’s “wasn’t right”, and talks about the “wafer thin mattress” and the bitter cold.

It’s interesting stuff. In one of the more thought-provoking lines of the play, he remembers what the lack of privacy was like there: “Meeting me mam in a fucking fishbowl, someone sitting right beside you, listening to your mam tell you she loves you”.

Ryan has said that Hutch had some candid conversations with him about his life that meant the play could be accurate.

There is some pantomime-style humour around the crimes that Hutch has been linked to through allegations over the years: “I wasn’t there…but if I was” type stuff.

Ryan’s writing comes alive when The Monk walks the audience through what you would need to do to mastermind something like the Marino Mart robbery in 1987, when around IR£1.7 million was stolen from a security van at gunpoint. 

He talks about how you need to gameplay scenarios again and again, until it becomes boring.

“Repeat until it’s perfect. Repeat till you are bored. Now, other lads can’t do that. It’s simple, but it’s not easy,” he tells the audience.

Ryan got a round of applause from the audience at the end of that particular monologue.

It’s probably the most perceptive part of the play, that digs in deepest to the qualities that earned Hutch his moniker in the first place.

The play shows an enraged side to him, and a pensive side, but never a remorseful one.

It addresses the Kinahan-Hutch feud and the Regency Hotel shooting briefly, with some shouting, intensifying noises, and sometimes the sound of gunshots

In one of the play’s more jarring moments, Ryan’s Hutch reflects on how the late journalist Veronica Guerin should have “left” when threats against her life were being made, and then swiftly moves on to his grievances with having to pay “tax” to the Criminal Assets Bureau – almost IR£2 million that he ended up owing – that was set up in part because of her legacy.

The play is snappy, dynamic, and well-acted by Ryan (though some of the sound effects and visual media aspects don’t work that well).

It doesn’t tell us that much we didn’t know about Hutch, and it’s a very sympathetic portrayal of his life, and his actions.

At the end of the show Frank Sinatra’s My Way blasted through speakers as the audience spilled out.

At the back of the theatre, Hutch was taking photos with fans who had queued up to meet him.

When he was approached by journalists asking what his political messages were going to be in the upcoming by-election in Dublin Central, he wouldn’t talk. At one point when a journalist asked him: “What are the policies you are going to talk about now?”, he held up a soft drink can and squeezed it in front of her, smiling, before turning away.

It was a surprising reaction to being asked the most basic question anyone putting themselves forward for election can be asked.

Outside, reviews were positive from audience members at the sold-out show.

One man from East Wall said he’d really enjoyed the play. He added that he had voted for Hutch in the last election, and that he’d be voting for him again in May.

Why? “He’s one of the people, we need more politicians like that,” he said. 

He added that once his area had flooded, Bertie Ahern had come down to meet affected people. 

“He came down with little plastic bags wrapped around his shoes. Imagine. We were all saying, here, where can we get shoes like that then? We didn’t have anything and he was coming down with a fucking plastic bag over his shoes. They don’t mind us. That’s what they are like.”

Whether as a celebrity, or a soon-to-be politician, Hutch seems to be getting his political messaging out there, even if he won’t say what it is he stands for.