Shortt Story

Heads don’t so much turn as go through a full 360° when Pat Shortt walks into Dublin’s Brooks Hotel.

“That’s the bloke who does the ‘2-2-2-2-2’ adverts,” gasps a middle-aged lady.
“And Killinaskully”, adds her equally star-struck mate.
They could just have easily mentioned D’Unbelievables, Father Ted, Sgt. Mattie, The Crystal Ball, Moone Boy, Garage, his number one ‘Jumbo Breakfast Roll’ single or the 82¢ stamp Pat’s face adorned in 2008.
Like Anne Doyle, Gay Byrne, Twink, Aslan, Christy Moore and Bosco, Shortt is one of those people who’s world-famous in Ireland.
“Thank you for that lovely back-handed compliment,” he laughs. “I know what you mean, though! I’ve done a lot of work abroad and Father Ted was a big hit in the UK, but it’s here where people come up to me wanting a chat or an autograph. I’m always happy to make time for them because without an audience you’re nothing.”
As appreciative as he is of his fans, there must be occasions when the Thurles man just wants to be left the fuck alone.
“I was bringing my wife into the Limerick Regional hospital once – she had a really bad throat infection and I was late for a gig, so the stress and concern levels were pretty high,” he recalls. “We were heading towards the entrance when this guy stopped me for an autograph. I said, ‘This isn’t quite the place’. He goes, ‘It won’t take a second, just sign it.’ I tell him, ‘Seriously, I don’t have time for this’, which elicits a shouted, ‘Fuck you Shortt, you’re only a prick!’ in response. I was raging. Anyway, we go in and the receptionist starts asking these questions about Caroline’s age and so on, which I answer because her voice is gone. ‘Can’t she talk for herself?’ this woman says. ‘No, she can’t, that’s what the fucking problem is!’ Then I went out to find your man to beat the fucking shit out of him but he was gone.”
Shortt has been guilty of being an annoying fan himself.
“I was having a piss one day and the blondey fella standing next to me looked really fucking familiar. I couldn’t place him though, so I went, ‘You’re in a band, aren’t you?’ He gave me a withering look and said, ‘Fuck off!’ It was only when the door had slammed shut behind him that I realised it was Adam Clayton! Understandably he thought I was trying to be smart, but for once in my life I wasn’t.”
Our chinwag is taking place the one day this week that Pat isn’t on set with Brendan Gleeson, his son Domhnall, David Wilmot, Dylan Moran, Marie Josée Crizé, Isaach De Bankolé, Chris O’Dowd, Kelly Reilly, David McSavage and Aidan Gillen shooting the follow-up to John Michael McDonagh’s smash hit debut, The Guard. I was looking forward to seeing Mr. Shortt on horseback until I realised that what I’d read as Cavalry is in fact Calvary.
“You thought it was a Western?” he shrieks. “There are some cowboys in it but not the sort you’re thinking of! At this stage of his career, Brendan could be full-time in Hollywood making major studio film after major studio film, but, no, he’s freezing his bollocks off in Sligo because he loves John’s writing. I was talking to him about it the other day and he said, ‘These scripts don’t come around too often.’ This particular film is just wonderful – mad, dark and full of brilliant characters.”
While Pat’s keeping it zipped – “No-one’s talking about the plot because you’d be giving too much away if you did” – Hot Press has gleaned from the pages of the Hollywood Reporter that Gleeson “plays a priest who is the flip side to Sergeant Gerry Boyle in The Guard. A good man intent on making the world a better place, he is continually shocked and saddened by the spiteful and confrontational inhabitants of his small country town. One day, his life is threatened during confession, and the forces of darkness begin to close in around him.”
We’re going to start queuing up outside the cinema now!
“What I can tell you is that it’s a very happy set. John seems to like to work with people he knows – in addition to myself and Brendan, he’s also brought David Wilmot from The Guard back and the crew’s virtually the same. You’re working in each other’s ear 16 hours a day, so if you don’t get on it’s going to be a fucking nightmare. It was the same thing when we were doing Killinaskully – ‘He/she’s a great actor but a pain in the arse, let’s go for someone else.’ And no, I’m not naming names!
“I shouldn’t be telling you this because it’s not fair on the two boys, but there was an incident yesterday where we arrived back from unit base to set and there were three paparazzi with long lenses lying in wait. I got out of the car on the side facing them and gave them their photograph. The boys got out the other side, made a dart for it but literally ended up down a blind alley where the paps had their evil way with them! Everyone apart from them found it quit amusing.”
Returning for a moment to Killinaskully, there’s talk of Willie Power, Dan Clancy, Pa Connors, Sgt. Dick O’Toole, Jacksie Walsh, The Widow Gilhooley et al being resurrected for a film. Does Pat have a concept of where he wants to take it?
“(Pause that isn’t so much pregnant as feet up in the stirrups waiting to give birth) No, but you’d be looking at a storyline that involves the whole village and is perhaps a little less cuddly than the TV show. People are on to me about it constantly; I definitely think it’d work as a movie, so one day, yeah, I’m sure it’ll happen.
“Perhaps I’m stating the obvious here, but a film script is totally different to TV in terms of plotline, action, pacing and all the other ingredients,” he expands. “That’s why – much to RTÉ’s consternation – we refused to do hour-long Killinaskully Christmas specials. They approach it like it’s a half-hour but it’s not, it’s almost a feature-length movie.”
Is it fair to say that in terms of funding anything ambitious, the shutters have come down at RTÉ?
“Yes and no. They want to be innovative, but don’t have any money. There are a couple of really, really good heads out there who are interested in pushing things forward – and have already done so with things like The Savage Eye, Republic Of Telly and The Panel. It’s totally different to when Jon Kenny and myself were starting out – there was fuck all comedy, it didn’t exist then, on RTÉ except for the odd show with a Mike Murphy and Twink sketch on it.”
Has Pat ever had the pleasure of working with Twink?
“You’re not going to get me down that road! I was on a panel with her once or twice; that was it. They want to be ambitious, but I was out at RTÉ recently and they’re talking about 2013 being their toughest year yet.”
We haven’t spoken to him since they gave him his own six-parter, but a few years back Mario Rosenstock was highly critical of the RTÉ commissioning process – “Meetings about meetings”, he described it as – and the fact that he’d had to take José Mourinho and the rest of The Special One crew to Setanta.
“I found it tough at times too,” Pat admits. “The scripting process at RTÉ can be very laboured. When I worked there first it wasn’t too bad – we were given a decent amount of leeway, which bit by bit was reined in. You’re also pre-watershed so you’re taking instructions from them as to what you can and can’t say. You’d try and get as much as you could over the line and then be realistic because it’s family television. The one time critics piss me off is when they put you up against a post-watershed show and say you’re not as edgy or irreverent. It’s a completely different kind of writing.”
Anne Sexton of this parish rightly drew attention to the fact that on Grey’s Anatomy it’s perfectly okay to say “penis” but not “vagina.” What are the verboten pre-watershed RTÉ words?
“One of them we couldn’t mention was ‘condom’. I couldn’t fucking believe that. I said, ‘You’re fucking joking me?’ So on one episode of Killinaskully we had the ‘yokemethings’ and the ‘jingmeyokes’. It made it farcical because you were having to dance around the word. You’d get people saying, ‘You’re too paddywhackery’ but we had no fucking choice! If you’re doing a shooting scene you can’t point a gun at someone’s head – you have to point it down or something, which makes it look fucking strange. You can understand not saying ‘fuck’ or ‘bollocks’ immediately after Celebrity Bainisteoir – then again… – but the condom one absolutely floored me. It’s the proper name, not slang. There are condom machines in virtually every public jacks in the country, which kids see. We weren’t taking them out and stretching them or turning them into balloon animals – it’s just the word we were using.”
RTÉ have hang-ups about condoms, but are happy – post-watershed admittedly – for Jennifer Maguire to have a running gag on The Fear about all Russian women in Ireland being prostitutes.
“I’ve heard reports, but haven’t seen it. It struck me recently that I never got a booklet listing what you can and cannot say. You kept being told, ‘Oh, er, not sure about that.’ All the years of working and writing with RTÉ no one ever produced the book, so you were scripting wondering, ‘Will I get away with this or not?’”
The RTÉ coffers would be even emptier if it wasn’t for the cross-channel success of Mrs. Brown’s Boys, a show that I personally find as funny as hemorrhoids but which my fellow countrymen can’t get enough of.
“Some people picked me up wrong when I said, ‘It’s doing for comedy in Ireland now what Father Ted did in the ‘90s.’ It’s not the new Father Ted, but what is happening is that they’re looking again to Ireland for comedians. I’m over to the UK myself soon for some meetings about a project we’re trying to get off the ground there.”
It’s like when U2 went supernova and every record label wanted their own Irish band.
“I’m the comedy Cactus World News!” Pat deadpans. “Or Something Happens… or The Stunning. I was talking to Joe and Steve yesterday, great lads. The British stations are all looking in this direction. It’ll last for a while and then the next thing – Indian sitcoms or whatever – will come along and takeover.”
He’s skillfully managed to avoid the question, namely is Mrs. Brown’s Boys even remotely chortlesome?
“I have to say ‘yes’,” Pat almost apologises. “I sat down expecting not to laugh and found myself roaring. I don’t like some of the things they’re doing, but overall it’s really well-written and filmed.”
I looked at it and thought, “No way is that going to fly in the UK.”
“I didn’t think it would translate either, but it’s getting something like a 20% audience share every time it goes out on the BBC, which means it’s being watched across the board. I got a phone call recently from a mate of mine who was doing monitors in the UK for Snow Patrol. ‘You’re not going to fucking believe it,’ he said. ‘We’ve sold-out one night in the Sheffield Arena and the next five nights is Brendan O’Carroll!’”
Whatever about Mrs. Brown’s Boys, I was convinced that no one east of Rosslare was going to get the Rubberbandits whose first full-length Channel 4 show airs in November.
“The boys didn’t surprise me at all because it’s the YouTube generation they’re appealing to,” Pat proffers. “Those songs, ‘Horse Outside’ and ‘I Want To Fight Your Father’, are brilliant and work on two levels. My kids love ‘em because they’re rude, and you, as an honorary Limerick man, and I love ‘em because they’re rude and a send-up.”
Someone who definitely doesn’t get the Rubberbandits’ satirical side is Joe Duffy. Has Pat heard anything funnier than Blind Boy Boathouse’s Liveline taking apart of Joe?
“Oh, that was great!” he enthuses. “You have to be smart to do what the ‘Bandits did to Joe Duffy, which is make him look a complete eejit on his own show. I love The Savage Eye skit about him deriving pleasure from his callers’ misfortune: ‘More pain in the headphones, please!’ I don’t like Liveline’s style of journalism. It’s cheap and his presentation’s cheap. Joe’s a nice guy. I’ve met him and I’d sit and have a cup of tea with him, but I don’t like what he does.”
Normally I’ve no time for Willie O’Dea, but him going on Liveline and defending the Rubberbandits was a PR masterstroke.
“Yeah, it was good a ‘stroke alright, but I wouldn’t want to comment much on Willie O’Dea.”
I don’t want to make Pat Spokesperson for All People Outside Dublin, but every general election we see Michael Lowry, a tax cheat, and Mr. False Affidavit himself Willie O’Dea respectively topping the polls in Tipperary North and Limerick City. Is it a case of them being “our tax cheat” and “our Mr. False Affidavit”?
“Yeah, it’s waving two fingers at the folk in Dublin,” he nods. “Tipperary North’s the constituency where I grew up, and when Lowry got voted back in I phoned my dad to ask, ‘Why are people fucking voting for this guy who’s been involved in all sorts of shenanigans?’ He said, ‘Well, he did a lot for the town. He sorted the GAA out back in the day with Féile, which got Semple Stadium rebuilt. Who else is going to stick up for us for like that?’ I can understand the mindset even if I don’t agree with it.”
I had a blazing row recently with a Fianna Fáiler – it’s a regular occurrence – over whether Charlie Haughey deserves to be remembered as anything other than a fraudulent bastard.
“Charlie’s a different kind of crook altogether. He did amazing things for the arts, the horse trade and the financial services whilst at the same time taking the country for millions. He was a nasty, old school bully who didn’t mind who he pushed around and a disgusting snob. He lorded it over everybody, and for that I think he’s worthy of nothing but our contempt.”
I’m guessing that Pat’s not a member of the, “Ah, but Jimmy Savile did a lot for charity” brigade.
“You’re looking at the images of him with the cigar and the glasses and thinking, ‘It’s so obvious, why didn’t we fucking know?’ There’s a great joke: ‘I said to Rolf Harris when I met him the other day, ‘I remember you doing ‘Two Little Boys’ during the ‘70s’ and he goes, ‘No, that was Jimmy Savile!’ Obviously what he did is indefensible. I’m really hoping that the stories coming out now about John Peel aren’t true because whereas you knew Savile was dodgy he was someone we all looked up to and admired.”
While Savile – and perhaps Peel – deserve all the posthumous potshots being aimed at them, the media’s mauling of Gerry Ryan seems disproportionate to his “crime” of recreationally taking cocaine. He made headlines for the wrong reasons again this month when one of his friends, music promoter Dave Kavanagh, took an injunction out against the publication of his partner Melanie Verwoerd’s book, When We Dance. The ban subsequently lifted, it makes controversial claims about the events leading up to Gerry’s death and paints a less than flattering picture of his estranged wife, Moira.
“It’s fucking terrible to see this thing keep on unravelling,” proffers Shortt, his cheery demeanour for once slipping. “I despair when I see his name popping up again but paper never refuses ink. Like you, I worked and travelled quite a lot with Gerry and met him in the Shelbourne the week before he died. We had a coffee and about an hour-long chat. He seemed very much together. I would imagine he was going through financial problems, as are a lot of people in the current climate. If you made money during the boom by investing in property and pensions and all that stuff, chances are you lost a good chunk of it when things went fucking tits up. With his personality, I don’t think that would’ve destroyed him or driven him over the edge or any of those fucking terms you hear bandied about.”
What did Pat make of his former 2fm colleague Gareth O’Callaghan saying that, “Gerry’s dealers were closer to him than his kids.”
“That doesn’t deserve a comment. It’s a stupid man saying stupid things. That’s insensitive and it’s not nice.
“I know people who do recreational drugs and they’re not monsters. A proportion of people who drink become alcoholics and destroy fucking everything – drugs are kind of the same.”
It’s like Bill Hicks said – “You don’t hear the good drug stories.” I’ve been thinking of writing a book called My Drug Heaven, which would include interviews with people like Lemmy, Robert Smith, Lady Gaga and the brothers Gallagher who’ve partaken and never regretted.
“Joe Duffy would love that! You’d get a whole Liveline to yourself.”
Given his showbiz standing, would Pat be able to turn around – I’m being theoretical here – and say, “I’ve taken drugs recreationally and it hasn’t destroyed my life.”
“No, I don’t think so. I’m being very honest with you. I don’t think I could because of the way people look to me. I don’t agree with drug-taking because I’ve personal experience of friends who’ve come a cropper from them. I have a very strong opinion about them. However, I wouldn’t condemn people for taking drugs. Definitely not.”
The only time the redtops have shown an unhealthy interest in Pat is when he split in 2000 from Jon Kenny who’d just been diagnosed as suffering from Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. The inference being that Shortt had abandoned his friend in his hour of need. They’ve subsequently kissed and made up. Still, for a good while things between them seemed to be pretty tense. What exactly went down?
“I’ll be very, very honest with you – and Jon’d be the same – there was bitterness when we split up first. No different to any other couple – and we were a couple save for the sleeping together part! I’m not saying we weren’t tempted, but… Jon was slightly more dominant in the sense of him being older. I came out from under his shadow, which can be problematic. He was going through a lot because of his illness, but so was I because my job was gone. All I’d known for ten years was the D’Unbelievables. I didn’t know what if any sort of career I was going to have on my own. I could have been Andrew Ridgely to his George Michael!
“There was friction but the articles saying that solicitors were involved and we were going to sue each other – none of that ever happened,” he insists. “When Jon and myself started working with each other, we were living in each other’s ears. We got on like a house on fire. As time moved on and he had kids and moved to the other side of Limerick – I was in Castleconnell, he was out in Bruff – I wouldn’t see him from one end of the week to the other. We’d drive separately to gigs, didn’t hang out as much and gradually drifted apart. I always maintain that if Jon hadn’t got sick we’d have split up anyway. I think it was inevitable.”
What brought them back together?
“During those years of not working together, we’d drifted even further apart as friends. But there was an element in me that said, ‘Jaysus, wouldn’t it be nice to give it a shot again?’ The opportunity arose when I was coming to the end of a tour; Jon was coming to the end of what he was doing and a few promoters had asked us if we’d be interested in doing it. We had a few pints and just went, ‘Fuck, yeah.’ It was a perfect storm – it all fell together, we did it and it sold-out. It was great craic but I don’t think I’d do it again.”
As soon as Calvary is in the can, Pat will be focusing all of his attentions on I Am The Band, a new one-man show, which brings ‘Jumbo Breakfast Roll’ and ‘Where Did My Money Go?’ lounge singer Dixie Walsh back to life.
“I really wanted to do a full show around this guy who, having been in bands in Limerick myself, I love playing. I’m taking more of a stand-upish approach than usual, but there will still be lots of characters and music. Dixie will keep me busy until next summer when I’ve hopefully a TV project coming up.”
With his main company recording profits last year of €379,245, it appears that Shortt was right to pick comedy over rock ‘n’ roll.
“I can put my hand on my wallet and say, ‘I backed the right horse!’” he laughs again. “That said, I’ve scaled my operation down. I was doing a lot of video stuff and costume changes, so was touring with five crew. You’ve the double-edged thing of audiences being down, and not being able to play smaller venues because the production’s too big. I Am The Band is geared so that we can do Vicar St. one night and the backroom of a bar the next. Financially, I’d be better off concentrating on films and TV but I just love performing live.”

Pat Shortt brings I Am The Band to the Heritage Hotel, Portlaoise (November 3); Vicar St., Dublin (8 to 10); Backstage Theatre, Longford (16); An Grianan, Letterkenny (17); Arklow Bay Hotel, Wicklow (23); O’Keefe’s, Clonmel (24); Forum, Waterford (30); Source, Thurles (December 7); INEC, Killarney (January 25) and Lime Tree, Limerick (February 23). See Music News for details of a special charity gig.