Smack happy

Mark O’Halloran is refusing to place a rose between his teeth. We’re in the park with trusty hotpress snapper Liam Sweeney, I’ve had this flash of aesthetic inspiration, and Mark’s just not buying. “There, there”, he soothes, “I’m not dismissing your idea. I’m just poo-pooing it.”

Well, of all the nerve! Not that I’m mad or anything. He’s far too nice a boy to get cross with, and on consideration, a bright pink rose between the teeth really isn’t very Adam And Paul. Discarded tins of Stonehouse are probably far more appropriate, as all present were keen to point out in between eruptions of laughter at my expense.
Besides not being suited to horticultural flourishes (hey, it was meant to be a juxtaposition thing) it’s difficult to know how on earth one would pitch this wonderful, Dublin-based film. A smack-happy comedy with a downbeat social conscience? Minimalist gouger fairy-tale? Hellzapoppin’ by way of Ken Loach? In truth, I’m uncertain as to whether I ought to declare Adam And Paul a raucous entertainment, a social tract or a tender tragedy. Happy to report, however, that the film is an equally resounding success in all these respects, thanks to adroit performances, Lenny Abrahamson’s elegant direction and Mark O’Halloran’s delicate, keenly observed screenplay.
It’s obviously a fairly impressive thematic juggling act; a riotous farce with kitchen-sink undertones following the trials and tribulations of two junkies wanting, nay, needing to score, and yet, miraculously, the film neither patronises nor ever feels like getting spanked with a wet, rolled-up copy of the Morning Star.
“That was very much what we were going for”, explains Mark, Adam And Paul’s extremely affable screenwriter and star, “The whole impetus for the project came from my moving to Dublin, because I’m from Ennis originally, and when you’re not actually from a place, it’s always somehow more fascinating. When I arrived it was 1991, and at that point, the centre of town was decimated. Places like Mountjoy Square had literally collapsed, and I was living nearby on Parnell Street, and I was absolutely blown away by the numbers of junkies around. But I was even more amazed that people just didn’t register them. So I started keeping a diary of things that I saw, like I saw this amazing thing one day – these two really stoned women fighting over a choc-ice. They were having a tug of war with the stick and shouting ‘No, it’s mine’ until, of course, the thing falls. And it was the funniest and most depressing thing I’d ever seen, and that’s what I wanted for the film. And I do think Tom Murphy’s performance as Paul is hilarious, and balances everything else out.”
Mark is, however, incredibly passionate about the aspects of the movie likely to interest social historians of the future. “It’s really disturbing that there are whole areas of the city where the Government allowed things to get completely out of hand,” explains the actor. “There was just no way out. I was talking to a friend of mine, whose brother had become a heroin addict, and he pointed out that the real tragedy is that it’s rarely the idiots who get hooked. It’s usually the brighter guys at school who look out the window, and think, ‘Fuck this, I’m getting out of my head.’ Oh, and just look who Neilstown had as a TD – fucking Liam Lawlor. That’s hilarious.”
Concerned that his background (“I’m a middle-class culchie – the lowest of the low”, he grins) would somehow colour the project, Mark was keen to consult with those living close to heroin problems – “There are families all around the inner city and beyond with three generations just wiped out. And when the script was finished we took it out to some support groups in Neilstown and Rialto and so on, and they thought it was a hoot. They look on addiction as terrible, but they know some really funny things can happen along the way. Like there was a scene in the film were Tom Murphy’s character (Paul) falls asleep in an open fridge-freezer, and we shot it in a shop in Summerhill but decided to drop it because it was a bit too broad. Then the girl who worked in the shop told us they get junkies falling into the fridge at least three times a week. It’s the dangerous lure of the choc-ice again.”
The fridge bit may have ended up on the cutting room floor, but Adam And Paul isn’t short on classical, physical comedy. There are even a couple of sly riffs on the Laurel and Hardy classic Way Out West just awaiting the attention of anal-retentive early cinema buffs. Of course any similarities are purely intentional – “I love Way Out West”, gushes Mark, “I think I’ve seen it a hundred times now. At least. On the first day of rehearsal we decided that that was the film we wanted to make, because both Laurel and Hardy are homeless tramps in Way Out West, but it’s not a film about homelessness, it’s just a funny film about people facing insurmountable obstacles which is how I saw Adam And Paul. What can I say? The human condition is fairly funny stuff.”
Interestingly, though Mark was originally earmarked for the role of Paul, the more gormless Laurel-a-like of the central characters, he ended up essaying Adam, the infinitely more embittered and domineering of the film’s eponymous losers. Was it difficult making the switch, I wonder, having inhabited Paul for so long?
“Naw. There was a point when I wasn’t going to be in the film at all. I just wanted to write the story, and I had written a couple of short plays, and then the opportunity to write this came about when I hooked up with Lenny and Johnny, and they dragged it – kicking and screaming – out of me. But, it was never really about writing a star vehicle for myself. And as soon as we saw Tom Murphy doing Paul, that was it. He turned around and said ‘I love this character, he’s a little beggar’. He just completely got it. He was amazing.”
Not that Mr. O’Halloran isn’t pretty fabulous himself. His Adam is splendidly morose, a brilliant whinging foil for Murphy’s capering, with suitably miserable attire.
“Oh God, the jacket”, groans Mark, when reminded of his especially manky Adam outfit. “It was disgusting. I wouldn’t like to tell you what was done to that jacket. Everything got poured on it, including milk, so by the end of the four-week shoot, I smelled like a horrible cheese. One day we were in the van and we were sure something had died in there, until I got out and realised it was just me. And because we had no catering on the film – low budget and all – everytime we went to get a sandwich or something, someone had to come with us and say, ‘Oh, it’s alright – they’re actors’. People would take one look at that jacket and either scowl, or walk right through you.”