Having famously driven a milk float in one of the funniest-ever episodes of Father Ted, Ardal O’Hanlon didn’t have to do too much research for his latest TV role.
“It’s something I insist upon,” laughs the 50-year-old writer, comedian and actor. “Every role I demand a milk float, and luckily they obliged on this occasion. It was a bit of a coincidence, really; I never thought I’d be on a milk float again.”
In Sky 1’s new comedy drama, After Hours, starring James Tarpey, John Thomson and Jaime Winstone, O’Hanlon plays an unemployed milkman with truly lousy taste in music. Directed by Craig Cash (The Café), and written by Molly Naylor and John Osborne, the six-part series was filmed in Manchester last summer.
“After Hours is set in a north of England town,” he explains. “I play a dad; it’s very much a supporting role, a dad of this 18-year old boy called Willow who’s the main character. He’s at a bit of a loose end. His lovely girlfriend has just left him and all of his friends have gone off to college and he’s left on his own, mooching around, living with his parents.
“The dad – my character Peter – has just lost his job as a milkman. It’s all very sad, but then Willow stumbles upon an internet radio station and he gets part-time work there. His life changes for the better and he gets involved in loads of stuff. It’s a really, sweet and charming thing with a fantastic soundtrack, mostly indie music from the ’80s and ’90s, right up to the present day.”
Having been in a successful sitcom such as Father Ted, which is just as loved now as when first broadcast, what criteria does he use to decide what comedic TV roles he’ll take?
“It would be a number of different things,” he muses. “This is not a huge part by any means, but it was very attractive for a number of reasons. Mainly for the great cast. I was a huge fan of Craig going back to The Royle Family. I love his energy and his tone, I love his approach to comedy. He’s just an incredibly nice bloke. So when he asked me to my face would I play the dad in this, I had no choice but to say ‘yes’. Apart from anything else, just because he’s too likeable.”
The show’s indie soundtrack was another deciding factor. “Five pages into the first script they’re playing ‘Blister In The Sun’ by the Violent Femmes, and that just gave me a shiver. It brought me back to my own relative youth. Those kinds of reasons. My character is not particularly highly developed or anything. He does have a story which progresses over the six episodes. I’d be lying to you if I said, ‘Oh no, the character is fantastic! Multidimensional and I couldn’t resist it!’ That isn’t the real reason. It’s just a very charming show and it’s very much in that comedy/drama vein. There’s something idealistic about it.”
Fond as he is of After Hours, he won’t be watching the broadcast. “God no!” he laughs. “I never look at anything I do. I did a little bit in a thing called Cucumber recently, which I haven’t seen yet. I just couldn’t bring myself to look at, particularly my naked body which featured in Cucumber. So no, I don’t. Once the job is over, this is even true going back to Father Ted, I just move on instantly, the next morning.”
So he’s never watched old episodes of Father Ted?
“Sometimes, if it was on, I might pause and watch 10 or 15 minutes. Then I’d feel guilty and run away. Sometimes my children would be watching it and I watch with them and cringe a little. Because you can’t really dwell on the past. I mean the past 19 years I’ve been busy with other stuff. I don’t really have time to watch it. If you’re going to watch something, you’re going to watch a good movie or something. You’re not going to watch yourself in something.”
More than a decade after Ted, O’Hanlon swapped from priest to politician in another comedy series penned by one of its creators Arthur Mathews. Was he disappointed that RTE didn’t commission a second series of Val Falvey TD?
“Not really. I think we could have done a better job, to be honest. It’s like any job. I really, really enjoyed that one. I mean, working with Owen Roe who is a good friend of mine and a great actor. Working with Arthur and Paul [Woodfull] who are great writers, you just think, it could have been better and we could have given RTE no choice, you know?
“It pitched itself as a more of a mainstream Pat Shortt kind of comedy, that’s no disrespect to Pat, but more of a Killinaskully thing in that slot, and it probably shouldn’t have been. It probably should have been more late night and obscure and then it wouldn’t have gotten that negative attention that it was attracting. It could have been handled better, but it was very enjoyable.
“You really enjoy the job, you enjoy the process, you enjoy each other doing your damnedest to make it as good as possible... and then afterwards it’s not in your hands anymore. It’s up to schedulers, it’s up to viewers, it’s up to critics. I’d be very philosophical about those sorts of things. Very determined to just move on and ignore the reaction and the fallout and everything.”
In 1998 O’Hanlon published a well- received novel, The Talk of the Town. Any sign of a follow-up?
“Well, I’m working on one,” he admits. “I hesitate to say too much about it because, I’m sure I told you before, I’d started work on a second one and abandoned it. It just wasn’t happening for me at all and I couldn’t get to grips with it. I’m a bit more hopeful about this one that I’m working on now. I know what it’s about, which is a help, and I’m sticking at it in a way that I didn’t with the last attempt. So, yeah I would hope, in the next year or so, to get it out there.”
In another old Ted classic, the hapless Dougal was once unsure where he stood on the whole Oasis vs Blur debate. The indie-soaked After Hours features the music of both bands. But which one does O’Hanlon prefer in real life?
“Blur every time, I would have to say,” he states. “I did this really mean thing on Blur once, and I’ve always regretted it. I presented Top of the Pops and Blur were on. I should have been really thrilled because I was a fan of Blur. But I remember at that time Damon was going on about Pavement all the time, ‘Pavement this and Pavement that and Pavement were the best band ever’.
“So I introduced Blur as Pavement, which was just a really stupid joke and I’m sure no-one knew what I was talking about. It was just to have a little dig at them. So I said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen – Pavement! Oh no, sorry, Blur!’ But yeah, actually I’m a big Blur fan.”