Raggle Taggle Rooney

Joe Rooney is a master of comic disguises. From Hairy Bowsie to the Coolock Freddie Mercury, there is no wig too absurd, no moustache too false and no facial expresson too gormless he will not wear in order to get a laugh.

The latest incarnation of Rooney s alias madness comes in the shape of Fergus Scully, the hairy Gaelic-blatherin New Age culchie who props up on TG4 s Ri Ra programme. He s as OTT as they come but anyone who s ever strolled through Eyre Square of an afternoon or listened to a Hothouse Flowers record will recognize the type immediately.
Fergus Scully is based on this Irish singer/songwriter who is completely unheard of here, says Rooney, but who is really big in places like Denmark. It s all about this intense guy whose big hero is Sting and who (affects mad accent) tries to tap into the Celtic vibe. I m thinking of getting a wig with a mullet and a necklace with a Maori symbol on it. It s a bit of a Liam O Maonlai vibe.
But it was partly based on this guy who came backstage after a gig in HQ and opened up his mandolin case and took out a bottle of Brut and proceeded to put it under his armpits.
Rooney started off doing Fergus as a stand-up in an open spot in the Laughter Lounge and then heard that TG4 were looking for an insert on Ri Ra. So it was something of a shotgun marriage, as the Meath-based comedian had to quickly write material for the show.
I m not sure if TG4 know that I can t actually speak Irish, confesses Rooney, and that I m really doing it phonetically. I heard that they were impressed that my Irish was getting better. But it s not it s just my ability to remember syllables that s improving!
Rooney s live show also involves a madcap double-act with Louth comedian, Patrick McDonnell, known as The Pound Shop Boys.
The Pound Shop Boys are characters Patrick actually came up with, says Rooney. Their names Mad Benny and Slithery Noel come from two real people who live in Dundalk. Anyone that you d meet from Dundalk would know Mad Benny. I ll tell you a story about the real Mad Benny. He was thrown off the local bus because he came on and his trousers were split and he had skid marks and shit hanging out of him.
So the next day when the bus came along, he was standing on the side of the road with a chainsaw. He had cut down a tree to block the road so he could get on the bus! And he used to go into these draper shops smelling bras and bikinis! Then he d have to buy them so he became one of the shop s best customers!
Rooney and McDonnell s characters offer a pleasingly surreal take on some of the stranger aspects of the Irish psyche. Another one of their acts is a Spinal Tap-like send-up of that hideous beast, the Christian rock band.
Our new characters, Pascal Mercury and Fintan May, who are from Coolock, are in a Christian rock band called Hail The Holy Queen. Pascal s hero is Freddie Mercury he got his teeth done the same way and he got half his mickey put on to his upper lip as a skin graft. So he walks around with a stiff upper lip half the time! Instead of we will rock you , he sings He will Save you .
Rooney s love of creating colourful, larger than life characters stems from a certain uneasiness in having to perform as Joe Rooney when he takes the stage. Hence, he can shine when acting as Father Damo in clerical garb in Father Ted.
To be honest, I wasn t a natural stand-up when I started, he says. It took me a good two years to get used to it. I was more into doing sketches. That way, you don t have to be yourself. But some people just have that thing where from the moment they start doing stand-up, they re happy about it: Dylan Moran and Barry Murphy, for instance. Yet someone like Ardal (O Hanlon), when he first started, had this innocent character that he played. He wasn t fully himself either.
Those of you old enough to remember the eighties may remember that before he started doing stand-up, Rooney was the singer in a rock n roll band called Guernica, whose debut single, Orange And Red , was rarely off Dublin radio playlists.
I was doing that for five years. The problem was I was known around Dublin as a really serious, intense, Ian Curtis-type figure so getting up on a stage wearing a wig and singing silly songs would have ruined my whole image so there was no way I could really do that until the band broke up.
Rooney began his comedy career collaborating with the likes of Paul Tylak with whom he recently made the ill-fated Messers Tylak And Rooney for TV 3, a sort of comic travel programme with intermittent sketches and Paul Wonderful, with whom he performed as a Hairy Bowsie. He has since been a familiar face on the Irish comedy circuit but has also spread his comic wi(n)gs further afield.
I did a week of gigs in Norway, remembers Rooney. One night I was in this little town about two and a half hours north of Oslo and there was nobody there in the pub when we got there. We were told that the gig would have to be delayed for an hour because everybody was next door watching Shrewsbury play Northampton. That s how exciting Norway is.

Joe Rooney and Patrick McDonnell star in Further Ted at HQ on the 29th/30th December