At home with Paul Woodfull

But when Jackie Hayden calls around he doesn’t quite find the crowded house he expected.
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By his own admission, Woodfull’s semi-detached house is in either Kimmage or Crumlin, depending on the level of working class cred you’re seeking, and is furnished in a decidedly minimalist way.

“It’s actually quite like the house Philip Lynott grew up in not so far down the road, and we’ve added an extension onto one side. It was built around 1939 and we moved in about four years ago from a flat we had in Ranelagh."
The “we” in Woodfull’s life are his wife Laura, who works in 98FM, and their 18 month old son Jude (the couple have another child on the way). “When we moved in we had to gut the place, and we’re still not finished the kitchen,” he admits ruefully.
Those familiar with his astute impersonations of Dublin chancer tradesmen might wonder if he received some inspiration from real life. “It’s a frustrating time, trying to get one guy to fix the job the last guy screwed up, but they’re good source material,” he confesses.
His I, Keano co-writers Michael Nugent and Arthur Mathews, have been round to visit, as has Mathews’ Father Ted co-conspirator Graham Linehan. Woodfull likes nothing better than to cook dinner for guests. “I went through an Italian phase, and I’ve done some Thai dishes, but I’m now into slow cooking English and French pies. I haven’t got round to any Indian dishes yet,” he admits.
His favourite possession is his 70-inch telly on which he watches a mixed diet of films and comedy programmes – and which comes complete with impressive surround-sound and lots of very loud speakers.
“I sometimes watch a new comedy show just to keep in touch with what’s happening, but I could easily watch five hours telly a night,” he says. “It beats going to the cinema. It’s got too unpleasant, people kneeing you in the back of your seat and making horrible noises. I’d rather stay at home.”
He used to try out his new comedy ideas on his wife, but she doesn’t think he’s funny anymore. In fact, even Jude thinks Laura is funnier than his Dad, especially when she makes noise dropping things on the floor. “He finds that funnier than anything I ever do for him,” the I, Keano man reckons.
I wonder does he ever use his gift for impersonation to deal with telephone sales callers? “No”, he admits, “But I’ll have to start. I had a call the other day from a woman from India called Siobhán offering me better phone charges. How ridiculous!”
He’s more contented with the neighbourhood than with Siobhán from Bangalore. “It’s a lovely estate. The neighbours are the nicest I’ve ever had, there’s a SuperQuinn nearby, and it’s only a 45 minute walk to the centre of Dublin and only 10 minutes by car,” he says.
His music collection was given a thorough culling recently, so I was too late to sneak a glance at some of the albums that inspired Ding Dong Denny.
“There were some marvellous records of Republican ballads by bands like The Irish Brigade. Even the titles were brilliant, like ‘My Little Armalite’, ‘The Stripsearch Song’ and ‘The Sniper’s Promise’. Real romantic stuff. Another album was called About Time and it had a cover with a clock and what looked suspiciously like a timing device. Classy stuff!”
When he has friends round he’s more likely to slip into Marvin Gaye’s What’s Goin’ On album, The Sound Of Music or the new Sufjan Stevens’ album.
“But Laura sometimes gets a lot of CDs sent to her at work so I find stuff I didn’t know we had when I do a bit of culling! I‘m not really the big music listener I used to be. I get most of my music on the car radio, and even when I listen to the radio it’s more likely to be talk radio. I Like Newstalk and Ryan Tubridy has really got good again on Radio 1,” he says.
There’s a notable absence of art on the plain white walls. Is this deliberate? “I don’t really like too much clutter. I like the plain walls and the wooden floors. We have two Graham Nuttall paintings we bought a while back, but they’re too big and we’re not the big fans we used to be. We’ll probably get around to buying a couple of paintings, though, eventually”.
The attic houses a lot of books, many of them cookery tomes. “I look at some of the books I know I’ve read, and I can’t remember a single thing about them. I don’t read fiction, but I recently read Balsamic Dreams Architecture Of Happiness. I suppose you’d call them pop sociology or pop psychology. I have quite a few scriptwriting books I used to study, but they all say that you shouldn’t read too many books like that, but I read loads. I also read The Office. Michael Nugent gave me that as a present”.
I also spot some Richard Dawkins. Paul explains their presence by musing on the fact that since his The God Delusion has brought God back into play, atheists have become a bit more proactive in declaring their non-beliefs of late. When he mentioned God, I don’t think he was thinking of Mick McCarthy’s former Nemesis, but the Irish legend is rarely far from his thoughts. “We’ve had to update the I, Keano script a few times to keep up with developments in Roy’s life. Like there’s a totally new version of the song that ends the show. As long as Roy keeps his career on the move we’ll probably have to keep changing it. Although I sometimes get quite depressed when I know I have to get down to work and there aren’t really any ideas and I think I’ll never get another funny idea as long as I live.”
But we know he will. And we’ll all laugh. Even Jude.