Roddy Doyle's loveable barflies radicalized

I wrote this in response to Mr. Doyle's barflies discussing the recent tragedy in Brussels. A lot of people think it's real which is equally gratifying and worrying.

Sunday Sermon Podcast

Good news everybody. I've succumbed to your latest online petition and started doing a weekly current affairs podcast in character as a moronic cleric. Hope you enjoy it.

http://sundaysermonpodcast.com/


Special thanks to Conor O'Toole, Emma Keaveney and Diarmuid O'Brien.

Couples Counselling

It's been over a few weeks since the end of the initial run of "Couples Counselling" at Smock Alley and feeling has just about returned to my legs. As a director I had less and less to do as the opening night approached  - the strenuous business of line learning and running around for an hour was effortlessly performed by the cast - but I'm a lazy man and even the shortest prolonged burst of effort can leave me bedridden for weeks at a time. 

"Couples Counselling" is a modern day farce about a compulsive liar who, upon learning his psychiatrist has organised a couples counselling session behind his back, enlists his friend to act as his favourable fake shrink. I roped in Ed Sammon and used his star wattage to attract a complimentary cast of comedy cool cats, namely Stephen Colfer, Hannah Mamalis and Philippa Dunne. Ed and I made a sketch called "Successful Man" with Hannah a few months earlier. She's one of the funniest and most fearless comedy performers going, and an excellent writer to boot.

She and Stephen are part of a brilliantly talented comedy group called Dreamgun. They're a Dublin based group of whizkids who make amazing live and filmed sketches. They sometimes do staged readings of blockbuster movies to raise funds for their various endeavours. Stephen played Dr. Alan Grant in their Jurassic Park staged reading and was a very funny straight man. Philippa is from the legendary Irish comedy group Diet Of Worms and is something onto the Irish Catherine O'Hara. She's a comedy savant. Everyone worked really hard and contributed great gags and character moments to the different drafts of the script.

 

The show was presented as a work-in-progress as part of Smock Alley's Scene + Heard festival for new work. We had two successful nights and are now applying to the Dublin Tiger Fringe. We're hoping to do a bit more work on it before debuting the show proper.

A weirdo calls...

My friend Danny O'Hanlon is a comedian, broadcaster and a terrifically nice fellow. He sometimes hosts Dundalk FM's Drive Time show where he plays a selection of great music, informs listeners of local goings on and weighs in on the issues of the day. Last week Danny read out an announcement about an upcoming gig featuring the self proclaimed king of comedy, Louth entertainment legend Big "O", whom Danny challenged to a stand-up stand-off. Comedy promoter Nicky Fallon called Danny out on his hubris and the two set about organizing the increasingly violent competition.  

https://soundcloud.com/dannyohanlon/112615-the-stand-up-stand-off


The following week Danny played some old Woody Allen clips to celebrate the auteur's 80th birthday only to have the man himself ring up to discuss chippers, weight lifting and shooting Dundalk for Manhattan.

https://soundcloud.com/dannyohanlon/12-02-15-woody-allens-birthday

Elvis Costello call the Drivetime show on Dundalk FM to discuss the origins of NWA's 'Fuck the Police', his time as a video-store manager and eccentric air-travel with David Cameron.

https://soundcloud.com/dannyohanlon/12-03-15-elvis-costello-calls-in

The Alison Spittle Show

Colin, Alison and I in Brighton for the Comedy Festival, May 2015.

PILOT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtM4k6RfmIk

Alison Spittle is a really funny comedian from Mullingar in Westmeath. We've been friends for a few years through stand-up and have collaborated on a few sketches and scripts. She's a member of The Mess Around repertory players and has portrayed a number of diverse characters including Mrs. Godzilla, Malala and The Green M & M. Colin and I recently moved The Mess Around to the Workman's and they had a free night they wanted filling, so I suggested a chat show with Miss Spittle. Diarmuid O'Brien helped us produce the pilot which was a lot of fun. Our pal Andrea Farrel did the warm up, Big Monster Club served as our house band and we were very lucky to get Tara Flynn and Aidan Power as guests.

Producing a chat show for no money above a pub was a new experience. I acted as head writer and supervised our lovely team which included Ellen Tannen and Alan Maguire. Diarmuid ran the set with Tadhg Collins and Tom Rowley while Alison hosted the heck out of it.

The pilot is above and we had such a good time that we're planning episode 2 on January 8th in The Workman's. The clip below is a segment from the show entitled "Dog In The Street" about a lovely black pup who tells Alison quite libelous gossip.

Brody & Chadwick in The Great Blimp Deception

Coming to a Smock Alley Theater, Dublin near you!

Colin and I are doing our very stupid sketch show The Great Blimp Deception as part of the Collaborations Festival. The show also stars Alison Spittle, Simon Mulholland and Justin Brody with tech wizery from Diarmuid O'Brien, music by Brian Kelly and filmed sketches directed by Rory Walsh. It's running from March 6th to 7th before we take it to the Brighton Fringe in May.

Rory directed a few sketches for us that we've put up as mini trailers. Sure give them an ol' look sure  why dontcha?












Colin as Solomon R. Guggenheim

                                                       On the run and loving it in Inisboffin.

Paddy Angryman

Diarmuid O'Brien's "Paddy Angryman" is a satirical webcomedy about a nebbish civil servant called Liam (played by me), his online cyber terrorist alter ego Paddy Angryman and Liam's new co-worker Sile (Charlene Craig) who wants to topple the government. It also stars Tara Flynn as an amoral government minister, Bryan Quinn as Vincent Browne, Donnacha O'Brien as a smug newscaster and lots of other funny folks. Diarmuid wrote the series with contributions from myself (episode 3) and Colin Chadwick (episode 4) and directed the hell out of it.

All in all there's five episodes that should take up 20 minutes of your time. The show was shot beautifully by James McDonnell and looks, to quote Francis Ford Coppola, "the business". Although the show has yet to directly lead to tearing down the government we're all very proud of it

Diarmuid, Charlene and I spoke to the lovely Abie Philbin Bowman from Radio 1's "Arena" about the series a few weeks ago. Here's an auld link:

http://www.rte.ie/radio1/arena/programmes/2014/1127/663074-arena-thursday-27-november-2014/?clipid=1741351