Freedom of the city? I don’t have any sheep to graze
He’s flattered to be lauded for nearly 50 years as a comic but Brendan remains grounded and isn’t angling after a civic honour – or the Presidency
WITH almost 50 years in showbiz clocked up, Brendan Grace’s status as a national treasure is all but assured. Yet when RTÉ decided to do a new documentary charting his extraordinary journey from the Liberties to Florida (via Charlie Haughey, Sammy Davis Jr and Sinatra), he had one thing on his mind.
‘Maybe it’s because of my longevity in the business, which is unheard of,’ he says. ‘Or else they feel, ‘this guy can’t last much longer’.
‘I’ve joked with a few people that they’ve decided to do it while I’m still standing. They normally do these things posthumously.’
He jokes, of course, but at 67, Grace has experienced his fair share of health woes in recent years.
In 2009, he was diagnosed with diabetes, eventually losing two of his toes as a result of a gangrene caused by the condition.
‘It was an occupational hazard for me because of the hours I kept and the way I ate my meals,’ he recalls. ‘When I got it Eileen (his wife of 45 years) said that she wishes it was her, and she’s far more disciplined, whereas I throw caution to the wind.’
Given that comedy is his second nature, Grace launches into a deadpan routine about the current state of play with Yorkies and Toberlones (‘there’s twice the distances between the peaks now, and Cadbury’s Snack bar became so small they had to stop making it’). As anyone who has interviewed Grace will readily attest, a decent gag is rarely far from hand.
Far from letting it get in the way, Grace has incorporated the condition into his stand-up routine.
‘I meet so many people with diabetes after the show, and while I never give advice, I do talk to them about dos and don’ts,’ he notes. ‘But I’m still living well. My comedy has been greatly enhanced by my health problems over the years.
‘I feel making virtues of your problems can definitely be humorous. Not everyone has the luxury to be able to laugh about their health problems, but I know that humour has helped a lot of people I’ve come across in bad times.’
More recently, around five years ago, Brendan had a stroke, coupled soon after by a nasty fall. It’s something, he admits, that he rarely takes to the stage as material.
‘I consider myself lucky and I know the doctors did, too,’ he says. ‘Not everyone has a stroke and lives to tell the tale in a clear voice.’
Both incidents, he says, have affected his gait.
‘I found that I tend to look a bit inebriated, and that’s what’s worried me more than anything else,’ he admits.
‘My manager Tom used to have to tell people, ‘it isn’t what you think’. I consider myself too professional to drink before I perform, no more than I would consider drink driving.’
Does he ever worry about his own mortality? ‘No,’ he says decisively. ‘There’s a song written called “Que Sera, Sera”. What will be will be. When something like this presents itself, you just deal with it.’
In truth, Grace’s heath woes haven’t slowed him down much. His dry wit is still intact, and he liberally doles out jokes and one-liners as second nature.
Life is busy for Grace ahead of the airing of the documentary and a handful of Irish tour dates: in fact, the phone beside him doesn’t stop ringing for most of our hour-long interview.
Yet there is something serene about Grace: certainly, he has the air of a man who has taken a step back, seen his life’s work, and likes what he sees.
With nearly 50 years in the game, he’s more than able to deflect a question that he finds too personal with plenty of humour.
Asked if his national treasure status would ever have him eyeing a life as president in the Aras (to be fair, lesser national treasures have taken a stab at the gig of late), he says: ‘I can definitely tell you I won’t be looking for the Freedom of Dublin City or anything like that. I don’t have any sheep to graze in St. Stephens’ Green’.
Asked on the secret of a long and happy marriage, he falls onto an old faithful joke: ‘The reason I only got married once I because I wanted to have one mother-in-law,’ he quips. ‘To marry twice and have to deal with a second one is the reason people stay together.’
He’s not joking about RTE’s documentary bordering on the hagiographical, mind. A number of showbiz colleagues, among them Brendan O’Carroll, Michel Flatley and Twink positively shower him with tribute after tribute, while successors like Jason Byrne cite him as an influence.
Quite apart from that, the documentary sheds new light on Grace as a devoted family man. His wife Eileen, who admits she was a shy young woman when she met Grace at the Braemor Rooms in Dublin, was taken his with his acute sense of ambition and drive.
The documentary also features the couple’s four children Amanda, Bradley, Melanie and Patrick. It’s a side of the comedian rarely seen to the general public, and the affection that Grace has for his children and grandchildren is writ large. ‘It cost me a fortune to get them to say the right things about me (on camera),’ says Brendan. ‘I had to give away my life savings to them.’
In one memorable moment, Melanie recalls how her father would arrive to the school gates, dressed as his most famous character, the gregarious schoolboy Bottler, complete with blazer, cap and short trousers.
Sounds like a hefty dose of divilment, but how did that go down with his children?
‘If there was something where I wanted to get a point across, or something the kids wouldn’t do, or if there was trouble in the house with Eileen, I’d say, “if that happens again I’ll arrive outside the school in a school cap on a Honda 50”,’ he says with a grin. ‘I did it for the fun of it.
‘I made life difficult for them, I’d say. It’s bad enough that their father had to dress as a schoolboy for a living without showing up to the school gates.’
Grace my have had the ambition needed to succeed in the cut-throat world of showbiz – according to Eileen, he ‘lived out at RTÉ’ for much of his career. Yet Grace made
I’d tell the kids if that happens again I’ll arrive at the school in school cap on a Honda 50
I don’t know if I’m getting typecast. Maybe next time I might get to play the Pope
it his business to drive home after every single tour date when his four children were youngsters.
‘We didn’t ever stay overnight, but when I toured the country, and by the time you packed the gear after a gig and drive home in all kinds of weather, I used to meet my kids going to school,’ he recalls.
‘This is perhaps the reason I never took up golf,’ he adds. ‘Along with the dreadful unsociable hours I was keeping, I’d never have seen Eileen. The kids would have to write into Aer Lingus and say, “it’s Daddy’s birthday, can you give Daddy this gift the next time he lands?”
These days, the clan is spread out across Ireland and the US – his son Bradley is in the punk band Poison In The Well – and Grace clocks up plenty of air miles as he divides his time between Florida and Killaloe in Clare, where he owned a pub until 2011.
I ask him what he sees when he does return to Ireland: has his beloved Ireland shifted beneath his feet with every visit?
‘I’m never really away for that long,’ he reasons. ‘There’s a really beautiful feeling of arriving in Shannon. In fact, I’m going through Shannon longer than anyone who has ever worked there.’
These days when touring Ireland, he and Eileen now have the luxury of staying overnight in the towns he plays in.
‘A lot of my shows here in Ireland are done in hotels and concert venues, and we get to stay over and meet the audience again over breakfast,’ he says. ‘They can see me have the boiled egg.’
His current audiences, he observes, straddle the generations: ‘People have always been able to bring their kids along to the show,’ he notes. ‘It’s a very general show. It’s not without innuendo, but I don’t tend to go over the edge with the vulgarity.’
Indeed, Grace found a winning formula a long time ago, and has stuck with it, even while the comedic landscape around him changed down the decades. He won’t be swayed by current trends, or the appetite for more toothy satire.
‘I’m a product of the early ’70s and I was fortunate enough so that the people I learned my stage craft from – and there weren’t many of them out there – were people like Cecil Sheridan. I make comedy where you don’t have to have a degree,’ he muses. ‘It’s very simple comedy.
‘Look at Brendan O’Carroll; you don’t have to be Einstein to know what he’s on about either. It was comedy that was popular 100 years ago, like Laurel and Hardy, no more than my own comedy is. I always say if something was funny 100 years ago, it will stand up today.’
Though they often doff a cap to him, subsequent generations of Irish comedians, he observes, took a very different route to his.
‘I hear the word ‘alternative comedy’, and in my opinion, the alternative to comedy is tragedy,’ he states. ‘It’s funny or it’s not funny, and that’s why traditional stuff has more a chance of surviving.
‘I still wear a tuxedo and shiny patent shoes. Good luck to the (new guard) and I’ve nothing against them, but they certainly don’t dress for the stage.’
In addition to comedy tours, Grace still keeps his hand in with acting. Famously, he appeared in Father Ted as the memorable Father Fintan Stack. He also starred in Killinaskully, The Gift and Moondance.
He will appear in the forthcoming film Tradition, alongside Paul Ronan.
‘I don’t know if I’m getting typecast,’ he laughs. ‘I was a priest in The Gift and in Father Ted. Maybe next time I might get a spot as the bishop. Or the Pope.’
He also stays true to his original roots as a musician; at 18, he kicked his showbiz career off as a member of show-banders The Gingermen. More recently, Grace has recorded a track, “The Dutchman”, along with the Forget-Me- Nots choir for the Alzheimer’s Society of Ireland.
With his workload still very much heaving, the question begs to be asked. Would he ever branch out into reality TV consider doing something like Dancing With The Stars?
He shakes his head with certainty. ‘I wouldn’t be a judge on Ireland’s Got Talent either,’ he says. ‘Marty Morrissey was in that (Dancing With The Stars), but he’s a personality character anyway.’
I tell him I think he would make a very popular casting choice; besides, comedians seem to do particularly well on the show.
‘Do you think?’ he says with a glimmer of mischief, as though contemplating it for a second. Then, he adds: ‘No, I’ll be leaving Dancing To The Stars to people who can do it better, I think.’
For now, celebrating a half-century on the Irish stage is what looms into view for Grace.
‘Let’s hope for 50 more, eh?’ he says. ‘They’re certainly making a fuss of me now, but I’m very proud I have to say, it’s been a wonderful joyride for me all along.’