Putting a Rosenstock in it

The picturesque grounds of Ardgillen House in North County Dublin have hosted concerts by REM, Meatloaf and Status Quo. Now Mario Rosenstock, Ireland’s most popular mimic, has taken up temporary residence in Ardgillen to shoot his new RTÉ series The Mario Rosenstock Show.

Like the musicians who have passed this way, he, too, is a regular chart topper. In fact, Rosenstock is the last Irish artist to score a Christmas No.1, with X-Factor winners subsequently monopolising the slot (despite the best efforts of Rubberbandits). But his success has its roots in his broadcasting work – notably on the Ian Dempsey Show on Today FM, where he established the Gift Grub franchise, and the Vincent Browne Show on TV3. However, the upcoming TV series is his most ambitious yet, bearing his own name proudly over the door. Sporting an impressive Michael D. Higgins headpiece, he lays out his plans for teh show enthusiastically.
“It’s a little edgier,” he promises. “But not gratuitously or for the sake of it. For example, there’s a sketch about a celebrity lawyer that I don’t think would work at 8.15am in the morning. I’m giving it everything in terms of scripts and making the jokes punch through.”
Integral to the whole operation is his radio cohort, Ian Demspsey.
“He’s been there from start on radio and was a partner in the Gift Grub live project,” Rosenstock explains. “I begged him to do it. I can’t imagine doing it without him. I’m not the only writer, because it’d be too much to write an entire TV series on your own and the tone would be too similar. I looked around and contacted a few people that made me laugh (Paul Howard and Colm Tobin are both on board).
“It involves a lot of laughter and a lot of focus and it’s been an absolute hoot,” he adds. “One of the key ingredients is Damien Farrell, who directed me in the Vincent Browne sketches and Special One TV. He knows me well and, while he’s a perfectionist, you have to work fast and turn over a lot of material.”
One of Gift Grub’s strengths is how it’s always so bang up to date. While television production schedules present an obvious obstacle, Rosenstock and company have devised a way to incorporate a fresh skit every week.
“We’re leaving a hole in each episode so we can be bang up to date and get that week’s news,” he explains. “For example, if we’d been on-air last week we’d have gone to town on James Reilly. It’s going to look like it was shot the day before transmission – kind of like what Drop The Dead Donkey did where they left the voiceover for their credits to the very last minute.”
Years before the YouTube era, between 1989 and 1991, Scrap Saturday made for essential Saturday morning radio. However, there has never been a similarly successful TV satire.
“Unfortunately, Scrap Saturday never got a chance to do anything on television, so this a great opportunity for us,” Mario agrees. “A few things have to be said, if it doesn’t take off or happen. I cannot blame RTÉ at all, because I know that there’s an ongoing narrative in Irish journalism that comedy and RTÉ don’t work, or RTÉ fuck it up or whatever. Most of which is completely ill-informed. When they find something they let it go or whatever, which is a complete urban myth when you take the Father Ted example. The latest one creeping in is Moone Boy – why didn’t RTÉ do it? Well, I’d like to try and help dispel that myth. RTÉ have been nothing apart from co-operative with me. I’ve seen The Savage Eye and RTÉ must have been co-operative with that. I think credit where credit is due – they deserve to be congratulated for it. And credit to them for coming to me, technically a competitor from a rival radio station, and letting me script a show to my liking.”
According to one recent news report, there was ‘fury’ in TV3 when RTÉ snapped up the comic.
“I think that was created out of nothing really,” Mario answers. “Journalists naturally want to pit RTÉ against TV3. TV3 have no grounds to stand on. RTÉ are supposed to bring on so-called talent like myself and invest in it – that’s exactly what their remit is. It’s social observation, satire and comedy and it’s Irish. It’s not a buy-in from abroad.
“That’s why everyone is here working today and getting paid. This is not Mad Men, as much as I like that show. If RTÉ aren’t meant to be doing that, then what are they meant to do? The grapes aren’t sour at all. TV3 wished me well. I did submit this idea to them and there was no traction – not out of want but out of (lack of) money.”
For the most part, the targets of Rosenstock’s satire have taken getting the piss taken out them very graciously. I vividly recall spotting a visibly amused Joe Duffy at a Gift Grub Live in the Olympia show, as Rosenstock lampooned him onstage. José Mourinho famously loved Mario’s sketches so much that he invited him to Stamford Bridge. Has anyone not been cool about it?
“Ronan Keating was against it in the beginning,” Rosenstock reveals. “You’ve got to remember that he was only 22 and talking about running for President at some stage and thought he was some kind of Irish ambassador. People started ringing him going, ‘You know the thing yer man does about you? He was doing you in Hollywood this morning as a porn star. It’s hilarious, Ronan – go with it’. Now, he’s completely changed heart. He called his yacht ‘Fair Play’ and tells people I’m a genius. I wouldn’t say that Davie Fitzgerald, the Clare hurling manager, is a fan. I understand that Eddie Irvine doesn’t like it. Does Eddie have a sense of humour? I don’t know. With Bertie you’d never know what he’d think. I was accused of glamorising him during his heyday, which I think is unfair because I think I was doing a satire on how he was getting away with stuff and no one was able to stop him. He was Roger The Dodger, cuddly Bertie. He disarmed everybody. All these nincompoops like Noonan and Kenny couldn’t lay a finger on this seemingly harmless creature, which for me is where the satire is.”
Rosenstock’s most widely known impersonation is not Bertie or Roy Keane (he starred in the musical comedy I, Keano) but the aforementioned Special One imself, José Mourinho. The legendary Portuguese manager loved his José & His Amazing Technicolour Overcoat skit so much, he invited him to perform a private show for the Chelsea squad.
“Mourinho is an extremely personable guy,” Rosenstock reveals. “He’s very tactile and Latin. He’s self-confident in a giving way, rather than a selfish way. He asked me all sorts of questions about how I do sketches. He kept asking me to do Mick McCarthy and he’d be like a child laughing at it. We were talking about football. Now, this was before the Brian Kerr era, so he asked me who do I think should manage Ireland. I said I didn’t know and asked him. He said (adopts Mourinho voice), ‘Roy Keane, because he’s invincible’. You don’t just answer back to something like that.”
I hope Mario at least suggested that the Special One would be an ideal candidate for the job someday?
“Of course I did and of course he wasn’t remotely interested,” Mario laughs. “He said it was number 28 on his list. Damien Duff was injured at the time, so he got me to ring up Duffer from his mobile, so he’d see Mourinho coming up on his caller ID. He was just out of physio somewhere up by Birmingham and was driving. So off I go in a Mourinho voice, ‘You are playing tomorrow against West Ham’. ‘Gaffer, my leg’s not right!’ ‘You’re playing tomorrow, or I’ll sell you to Walsall for £1.5 million’. Duffer nearly crashed his car.”
Rosenstock’s take on Mourinho garnered him an international cult following for Special One TV/I’m On Setanta Sports, which still enjoys a vibrant viral following on YouTube. Does Mario feel that he’s still got unfinished business with the charismatic coach?
“I’d love to do more of it. The problem is trying to find 500 to 600 grand a season, which in these times is tough,” Rosenstock explains. “You have to fly puppeteers over from England and everything. It’s quite technical. I love it to death and I’d love to do it again. We might have a chance if José comes back to England, and I think he will come back as he always promises. He’s a dynamite character. Women adore him. I’ve been onstage doing Jose, simmering, away and you can actually see women wetting themselves.”
Finally, while it’s great to have a jape and to poke playful fun at the great and the good, surely Mario has experienced the same anger, frustration and disappointment at the political system as the rest of us in recent years. Does he ever feel like doing something a bit more biting and vicious, perhaps along the lines of Chris Morris?
“I think The Savage Eye was vicious. You won’t have that kind of thing coming from me,” Mario concludes. “It simply doesn’t work for me. I’ve done sketches that I didn’t put on because I didn’t find them funny enough. They were too angry and full of vitriol. Funny is what I do. I get off on the surrealness of it all. As the cliché goes, truth truly is stranger than fiction. You know what? This place is completely and utterly mad. I always have to keep reminding myself that.”

The Mario Rosenstock Show starts on Monday, November 12 at 9.30pm on RTÉ 2.