Borstal Boy is a play adapted by Frank McMahon from the 1958 autobiographical novel of Irish nationalist Brendan Behan of the same title.
The play debuted in 1967 at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, with Frank Grimes as the young Behan.
The title takes its name from the borstal, a British juvenile jail, at Hollesley Bay.
The book was originally banned in the Republic of Ireland for obscenity.
It shows the young, idealistic Behan, over the three years of his sentence, softening his radical stance and warming to the other prisoners.