More Than Jake

PJ Gallagher has gone to the dogs. Literally.
“I’m just leaving the Dogs’ Trust,” he says, beginning our conversation with a trademark giggle in his voice. “I’ve adopted a new dalmatian so we’re trying to make our two dogs meet there and see if they’re getting on. It’s going to take a bit of time I think!”

Of course, comedians are under pressure to find a suitably hilarious, pun-tastic name for their pets, but luckily PJ won’t have to attempt to top Frank Skinner and David Baddiel’s moggy Chairman Meow.
“Ha, he’s called Louis, but that’s the name they gave him in the pound. He was there for four years so I don’t think I can change it at this stage. He’s huge, he’s more like a horse than a dog. But he’s great craic.”
It’s a nice snapshot of the contented domestic life the Dubliner now leads – himself and his Colombian girlfriend recently celebrated their first anniversary. He’s even learning Spanish.
“I’m not too bad now, I can hold my own. When were visiting her family we got stranded in Bogotá, where you just don’t get by if you don’t know Spanish. I learnt more in three weeks there than I probably did in months and months in Ireland. Our first date was a Valentine’s Day date last year. Although it wasn’t really a date – all my mates came along because they didn’t really get that it was just supposed to be the two of us!”
One can only hope Gallagher’s best known mucker Jason Byrne had the decency to stay away. He was probably busy that night hobnobbing with celebs on some chat show. Has it been surreal for PJ seeing his pal’s star rise to the point where he’s sharing screen time with Lady Gaga?
“That appearance on Graham Norton was so funny, I couldn’t believe it!” he chuckles in recollection. “This is a lad you used to work with in a warehouse and now he’s sitting there next to Gaga telling gags. You’re thinking, ‘Ah here, this is getting out of hand now! Somebody let us off the leash way too early!’”
PJ came out of the comedy traps quickly himself, making a name for himself on the live circuit and finding Irish fame with his Naked Camera japes, but injury kept him away from the spotlight in 2011.
“It was horrible. I had some leg operations go wrong, carried out by some maniac who calls himself a doctor. I had an old injury and he tried to fix it. Then he left me limping for a year, which wasn’t the end of the world. But then he tried to fix that injury and he left me not able to walk at all from January to April. Now both my legs are bad. At least I’m walking again. It was really, really tough just being on your arse. The hardest thing you’ll ever do is nothing. But I’m back now.”
That means a return to the stage, though he may steer clear of corporate gigs this time out.
“You’d never do a corporate if someone rang you with the offer a week before. Because you wouldn’t sleep for a week. Six months in advance you think it will never come and you can put it to the back of your head. I did a corporate once in Dunboyne Castle Hotel where I was pretty much chased out of the place by 200 accountants. It was the most disturbing day of my life. Another time a Russian guy got me in a headlock and threw me over his dinner table.”
You begin to understand why Gallagher once admitted to suffering from terrible nerves before each gig. Have they not settled over time?
“No,” he admits, “and it’s more than just butterflies! I don’t eat for the whole day before. It still scares the hell out of me. I don’t know what I think is going to happen, it’s not like there’s a sniper in the back. It’s a totally irrational fear. Maybe that’s what keeps me coming back. I seem to have a habit of scaring the shit out of myself generally.”
As if to prove the point, talk turns to PJ’s other great passion – riding motorbikes.
“That’s the reason I get up in the morning, it really is. It’s actually down to Jason Byrne. I got into it shortly after my old man died. Jason had a scooter and he gave me a shot on it. That was it – from being absolutely miserable to being high as a kite in a matter of seconds. I did my first road race last year. It scared the life out of me but it was a great day out. I really do live for it. If I could only do one thing for the rest of my life it would be sitting on a motorcycle. It’s like air, I just need it.”
When he hasn’t been down at the race track, he’s been filming in Britain, as Channel 4 consider producing a Naked Camera-style show.
“I just finished the pilot for them this week,” he reveals. “They saw Naked Camera and they really liked it. The one thing about the hidden camera shows made in Britain is that they always have a victim. Whereas Naked Camera didn’t. I was always the idiot.”
Gallagher says he learnt a few hard lessons from 2008’s Makin’ Jake, which transplanted his most famous character to America.
“The States was a misfire on our part, I think. We thought we could go there and do exactly what we did here. And then we did it with just one character, Jake Stevens, which was a bad idea. This time, we did an awful lot of research. We spent a long time in England, getting a feel for the place and the people. It’s so weird to go back to that type of stuff again. You feel like Rambo. You’ve been to Vietnam already, then somebody knocks on the door and they need your help. You go, ‘Really? I’m finished’. But no, there’s one more mission to go.”

PJ Gallagher plays Vicar St., Dublin on March 3.