TV Highlight of the Fortnight: The Walshes

By now the name of former Hot Press scribe Graham Linehan on the credits of any new TV sitcom is practically a byword for quality. On Thursday, March 6, RTÉ One will screen the first episode of The Walshes, a three-part comedy series set in Dublin, co-written and directed by the award-winning creator of Father Ted, Big Train and The IT Crowd.

Linehan teamed up with Irish theatre and comedy troupe Diet Of Worms, previously probably best known for their contribution to RTE 2’s Project Ha Ha in 2009, to turn their little-known internet web series, The Taste Of Home, into a proper TV show.

“We first met Graham at a Matt Berry gig,” explains Niall Gaffney of Diet Of Worms. “I went up to him and gave him a link to our comedy stuff on YouTube. We didn’t think he’d ever even look at it, but it was worth a shot. He watched some of our stuff that very night, got in touch with us pretty much the next day. He said he liked it and, if we ever had any ideas for stuff to work on with him, to send them on and he’d have a look.”

It wasn’t until a couple of years later, in 2010, when the five-strong team of comedy writers and actors made the no-budget The Taste Of Home – a series of madcap sketches about a working-class Dublin family filmed on a home camcorder – that things began to develop.

“We sent the links to him and he came back and said he really liked it,” says Gaffney. “He asked if we’d be interested in making a TV show out of it. It took a while, obviously, about four years of development, but it got there.”

The Walshes of the title are a warm, tight-knit and slightly crazed family of four from the fictional West Dublin suburb of Strollinstown. Taxi driver Tony (Gaffney) and suburban housewife Carmel (Philippa Dunne) are parents to the sullen Ciara (Amy Stephenson) and hapless Rory (Rory Connolly), who are both still living at home in their twenties because of the recession.

Even Ciara’s new boyfriend Graham (Shane Langan) is forced to move in and family friend Martin (Owen Roe) always seems to be hanging around mending bits and pieces.

“Tony’s a bit of a lovable idiot,” proffers Gaffney of his character. “He’s an eejit, as Graham calls him. He’s a family man and a bit more mellow than your average taxi driver. He’s constantly trying to get a laugh out of people. He’s not always funny, but he thinks he’s hilarious. Tony is kind of based on various uncles and friends that we've encountered over the years. I think everyone knows someone like Tony.”

Carmel Walsh, his wife, is in many ways a typical Irish Mammy. “Carmel, in a nutshell, is completely devoted to her children,” explains Philippa Dunne. “There's a really strong bond between her and her kids. And I think she'll do or say anything she can to make their lives better. If she sees them down, she’ll pick them up. If she sees an opportunity for some extra mammying she’ll ride in there and make everything okay.”

Although Diet Of Worms had already created the characters before Linehan became involved, the Dublin writer added some surreal touches of his own.

“We had come in with the characters already,” Gaffney resumes. “Obviously some needed more development than others because, as it went along, stories change and the characters got a little bit older, because we had got older ourselves. So Graham was initially a sort of script editor, but as the project grew, he got a lot more heavily involved in the writing.”

A man of numerous talents, Linehan also directed all three episodes.

“He really knows funny,” Gaffney enthuses. “He knows exactly what he wants in his performances. We really enjoyed working with him as a director because you know when he yells ‘cut’, he’s got what he wants. He doesn’t stop until he has it, you know. I mean look at his calibre, we had always been massive fans of his work. So it was one of these situations when you’re working with a director you trust so much that it’s just kind of a joy.”

According to Dunne, Linehan wasn’t precious about the script and gave the troupe a lot of freedom to ad lib.

“If we think of something really, really good to say off script, we can say it,” she says. “Graham would give us that type of freedom. Of course he would be shouting lines at us too, ‘Throw this in!’; ‘Take that out!’; ‘Say that thing you were laughing at the other day!’ Things like that. But as Niall was saying, Graham always knows the best thing to put in the final cut.”

There are currently only three episodes of The Walshes in the can, but the hope is obviously that it will eventually become a full series.

“Well, of course there is a hope to develop it further,” admits Gaffney. “I guess the ultimate decision would be made by the BBC [co-producers with RTÉ]. We’re definitely ready to go if they do. We have a couple more ideas and feel like we’ve only got started. I think the three episode platform is good because you can really see if the project has legs or not. If it does, we can really take off from here.”

It’s possibly to do with the fact that the moustachioed Gaffney bears a slight resemblance to Brendan O’Carroll, but some newspapers have already suggested that The Walshes may be something similar to Mrs Brown’s Boys.

“If you’ve got a family from Dublin in a sitcom, there's always going to be those comparisons,” he shrugs. “I think they're both very different styles of humour, even though you might draw some comparisons from the matriarchal figure that Mrs Brown plays. But I think the style of humour is enough to set them apart. Tonally they are very different shows, but if we were as successful as Brendan O’Carroll, we’d be delighted.”

The Walshes goes out on Thursday nights from March 6th on RTÉ One.)