Comedy done doggy style

Acclaimed Irish director Paddy Breathnach has something of a thing for weird and occasionally wonderful sub-cultures it would seem. Following on from the melodramatic comedy Blow Dry, a delve into the bitchy, mincing world of competitive hairdressing, his latest work is Man About Dog, a raucous broad comedy set against the controversial world of hare coursing. Wasn’t such a backdrop a tad, er, barbaric?
"Well, if you happen to be vegetarian like you", smiles the laid-back, amiable director, "then I can take the criticism. I actually love J.M. Coetzee’s book The Lives Of Animals because it rehearses all the arguments on the issue in a fascinating way. And having been inside an abattoir, the conditions that animals are raised in for our consumption are much worse than anything the hare has to go through. But coursing is one of those strange sports that gets designated as a minority sport, and that description is really formed as part of the urban/rural divide. When we shot at Clonmel, which is Ireland’s biggest coursing meet, there were thirty thousand people there, and yet it was only name-checked in The Examiner. The League of Ireland would never get figures like that. Yet it’s covered everywhere."
Well, the rush of noxious, pitchfork-wielding Countryside Alliance folks through Westminster recently would certainly bear that out. At any rate, it’s difficult (nay terrifying) to picture a thirty thousand strong throng packed into Tolka Park, to say nothing of the multiple fire regulations such a gathering would surely breach. Happily for militant herbivores like myself, and more importantly for the hares, the greyhounds panting at their furry swift heels are all muzzled at Clonmel, so Man About Dog is thankfully free of bunny gore. It is however, high on stoner-friendly comedy. Charting the misadventures of three hapless losers on a Smokey And The Bandit-style chase, Man About Dog is a Guy Ritchie-ish affair, which sees its ne-er-do-well heroes chased by itinerant gangs and a thuggish bookie in and around the arena of canine sports.
"I didn’t know a thing about dogs", admits Paddy, "But I loved the energy of the script (by Belfast scribe Pearse Elliot). And working with animals was nowhere as bad as it could have been. We had to cut a lot of actual footage from Clonmel into the movie, so it was almost like making a documentary at times. But I’ve always been a cat person myself, so it was a brave new world."
Having started his career with the acclaimed shadowy indie Ailsa, Paddy Breathnach is one of a few indigenous directors to go on to bigger and better things. (Indeed, figures suggest that from all the recipients of Film Board funding, only seven debut directors have made a second film in Ireland.) His much admired sophomore effort, the farcical comedy I Went Down is regarded by many as the best Irish film of the past decade, and while Blow Dry was, by the director’s own admission, a bit of a misfire, Man About Dog sees him once again hitting knockabout form. Still, watching Ailsa’s dark, sinister playfulness, few would have suspected that Mr. Breathnach would become Ireland’s premier director of broad comedy.
"I guess, it’s one of those things", says Paddy, "Once you have a reputation for doing comedy then that’s what you get approached to do. I was very lucky with Ailsa, because it picked up a couple of awards and that enabled me to keep working, but I Went Down reached a much bigger audience, so I suppose when people have a script featuring erections and animals, they think of me."
Can there be any higher compliment for any filmmaker? I doubt it, somehow.

Man About Dog is on general release