Adaptations
Donleavy wrote a stage adaptation of The Ginger Man which opened in London in September 1959, with Richard Harris playing Dangerfield. In October, the play opened in Dublin, also starring Harris, and was closed after three performances, due to the play's offensiveness according the Dublin critics. All this is recorded by Donleavy in the 1961 Random House publication of the play with an essay by Donleavy, :"What They Did in Dublin".
The BBC produced a 90-minute made-for-television version of the play, directed by Peter Dews, and aired on 23 March 1962 in the United Kingdom. Ann Bell played "Marion Dangerfield", Ronald Fraser as "Kenneth O'Keefe", Ian Hendry as "Sebastian Balfe Dangerfield", and Margaret Tyzack was "Miss Frost".
Donleavy asked director George Roy Hill to film the novel (the two of them, along with Gainor Crist, had been at Trinity together), but Hill felt that he would lose perspective because the project would be too close to his heart and his time as a young man at Trinity.
In 2005 there was reportedly discussion with actor Johnny Depp about starring in a film based on the novel. Rumors of getting the project started surfaced every year or two since 1998, including Depp traveling to Dublin to work on a script with Donleavy, and Depp enlisted Shane Macgowan for a part, but it never seemed to get going. In 2006 it appeared things were taking shape, with Depp selecting a director, Laurence Dunmore (The Libertine). Apparently, interest waned with the success of Pirates of the Caribbean. Depp returned to Ireland to meet with Donleavy again in the summer of 2008. As recently as June 2009, Donleavy was still hopeful that Depp would start the project in earnest.
The book also inspired a song of the same name, recorded by the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, sung by Geoff Muldaur.
Read more about this topic: The Ginger Man