‘Ard knock life

So Ardal, you must get this a lot, but… was it a big thrill to play a talking cat in an episode of Doctor Who? “It was a bit, yeah,” he chuckles affably. “I wasn’t a big Doctor Who fan when I was a kid but I really like the Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant incarnations. Basically since Russell T. Davies got his hands on it. I think he created something really magnificent.”

Having a cameo as a talkative moggy is one thing, but has O’Hanlon considered applying for the role of the titular doctor when Matt Smith eventually hangs up his sonic screwdriver? We can just imagine him running down the corridors of a space station in a ridiculously long scarf now. “Who hasn’t!” he confesses. “If I was asked to do something like that you’d have to consider it of course. But I was just delighted to be part of that history. It is interesting when I tour the UK now. In the past you’d get all sorts waiting for you at the stage door but now it’s only middle-aged men with their little dolls of Doctor Who characters!”
So far this year, O’Hanlon has had to walk through his fair share of stage doors. He’s been on the road for months. He kicked 2011 off starring alongside Maura Tierney in the Irish premiere of God Of Carnage at the Gate and from there, it’s been stand-up all the way. Jaunts to New Zealand and Australia took place in spring, before a summer tour of the UK.

You’d have figured one positive from being away from his London home so often would be that he was likely to miss the carnage on the streets of the British capital in August. No such luck. “I was in London for that, not far from Tottenham actually!” A disconcerting experience? “Jesus, I don’t think it’s the end of civilisation or anything like that. These things are cyclical. There was obviously a nasty hardcore at the centre of it all exploiting discontent. I suppose what bemuses me is that people are surprised. Why would people be surprised when we have this society that becomes more unequal by the day?”
Can he ever imagine riots on a similar scale back home in Ireland?
“It always makes me laugh when you hear Irish people going, ‘Why aren’t we out in the streets protesting like the Egyptians and the Greeks?’ Well… because it’s cold and it’s wet and the new series of The X-Factor is on. As well as that, it’s too small. You can’t throw stones at gardaí who you’ve been talking to that morning. ‘Ah, how’re ya Pascal! How’s your mother? Don’t worry, I’ll miss!’ I couldn’t really see it happening. Revolutions can’t happen in countries without the smell of jasmine in the air. And falafel.”

Born in Monaghan and now splitting his time between London and Dublin, Ardal seems an ideally placed outsider to comment on the changes Ireland has experienced over the last decade or two. With the Celtic Tiger a thing of the past, are we getting back to our roots? “The one thing I’d say is that people had lost a sense of humour, which is pretty vital. I also think that despite what people say, we haven’t really lost our sense of community. You could argue that the reason that the riots took place in Britain is that they don’t have that cohesion that we have here. People still visit their families on a Sunday, people still get involved in football clubs… I’m as pessimistic as the next person but I think you have to cultivate your own little patch. People are engaged in this country, that’s why I don’t panic. If the financial system did collapse, it still wouldn’t be the end of the world. It might be the end of your savings, but not the end of the world.”
Sometimes a little perspective is necessary. Our ancestors have made it through far, far worse – something that really hit home with Ardal when he traced his family history for RTÉ’s My Story. “It was a bit daunting,” he says of the process. “I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know too much about it. We found a few good stories but one of them was pretty immediate. My grandfather had been involved in the War of Independence, one of the men sent out by Collins on Bloody Sunday. I was dimly aware of that but, with the help of researchers and historians, to actually walk in his footsteps was pretty chilling and thrilling.”

One particularly remarkable story certainly showed Michael O’Hanlon to be a man of incredible resource. He managed to escape imprisonment with… “With a spoon, yeah!” Ardal laughs. “But it was kind of stirring stuff [probably no pun intended]. After the Civil War, a bunch of prisoners were in the Curragh, where there was actually a concentration camp called Tintown. They spent three weeks digging their way out – the only implement they had apparently was the spoon – then he ran away! It makes me feel slightly ashamed and pathetic in comparison. Three generations later, I’m a clown.”
Maybe Ardal has some dormant, genetic knack for escapology as well? “I’ve tried, I’ve tried!” he mock-groans. “I’ve been out in the back garden for the last five years and I’ve only got about a foot. But they don’t make spoons like they used to.”

Cutlery production has indeed taken a dive in recent times. No one gives it the necessary care and attention anymore. It’s probably down to everyone being wrapped up in social networking. Not Ardal though. Aside from filling out his family tree for RTÉ, he gave Twitter a go for a BBC radio show last year. “I flirted briefly with it,” he explains. “I took part in I’ve Never Seen Star Wars, a show where the comedian Marcus Brigstocke asks you to do things you wouldn’t normally do. That was really the only reason I went on, it would be anathema to me expose myself to the world in that way. I really enjoyed it, I totally saw the attraction of Twitter, but I wouldn’t have time for it. That’s time to be spent visiting old people in hospitals.” Yes, but does he actually do that? “No… let them languish!” His own account is now a ghost town, home to a few bemused tweets such as: “Surely time for a new social networking site called ROAR! You can only use 5 characters or less.”
No matter. As Ardal continues to tour fresh material, if he has anything he wants to say, he can say it on stage. “Well exactly!” he exclaims. “My show is a collection of tweets that I’ve never sent… I should put that on my poster!”