I better not fall again... I think it would kill my ma!
Comedian Fred Cooke plays it for laughs but he insists that he is not the joke contestant on DWTS
FRED Cooke (with an ‘e’) sits back on a tattered old couch that looks onto the RTÉ ballroom dancefloor. He is wearing two pieces of a tailored three-piece tweed suit and pair of spats shoes; his costume for the night. Across the hall he spots fellow competitor Johnny Ward, dressed down and preparing to make a speedy exit.
‘There he is, the real hero,’ says Fred waving over to the actor. ‘I mean how brave to perform a day after your father has died.’ It was an emotional evening for all of the celebrities dancing last Sunday night. But Fred says that they continued on with the show only with Johnny’s blessing, preferring to honour the memory of a great musician, performer and dad.
‘I was with Johnny when he got that phone call’, he says. ‘I didn’t know what had happened and I thought he was having an argument with someone. So it was really intense because up to that point we were rehearsing a team dance together and having great fun. By the time the dance had finished his dad had passed away, it was that quick. He was talking to his dad that morning. We didn’t know what was going to happen and you accept what is in front of you.
‘I did say to him before the show that he gets his musical talent and his rhythm from his dad. I said to him that for him being in the competition and dancing as brilliant as he was is what kept his father going for so long. And by continuing to do it is the greatest respect for his father’s life that he could do.
‘We hugged each other and by me saying that I was at peace with myself to continue with my part and have fun and dance. It was incredible what he did tonight and I couldn’t have done it. He will do great. He is gifted.’
This weekend the theme of the show is Eurovision, and Fred will be dancing to Mickey Joe Hart’s We’ve Got the World. As Fred starts to sing a bar Johnny spots us and walks over giving his co-star a big hug. ‘Did you know we auditioned for You’re a Star in 2004’, Johnny asks with a grin.
‘The two of us were going for You’re A Star auditions. We were in a queue together. We can sing the song together this week. Eins Zwei Drei I’ve got love in my eye.’
Johnny breaks into song and Fred’s face lights up. ‘I can’t believe you remember the song’. Johnny gives him a final embrace and leaves through a side door at the back of the set. Fred is caught up in the memory.
‘I had this comedy group called Eurobeat. We started it in college with my friend Mark Reiberg and it was great craic. The idea was we had split up in the Eighties when we had one No.1 hit called Eins, Zwei, Drei in Germany. We only gigged in college and we had one song. But Johnny was in the queue with me. And he remembers the song and he actually sang it back to me.
‘We had moustaches and keyboards and a guitar. The problem we had was that they thought we were taking the p*** out of them and we weren’t. Ray D’Arcy was here and he thought I was drunk.
‘To this day he is convinced I arrived with drink in me and I hadn’t. That problem followed us and we didn’t get through. Johnny was a singer and in a band with his sister. We were all in the queue together. We were put in the middle of him and his sister and this girl band Jade who made it to the final.
‘We were doomed from the start but we had good songs and good harmonies. It was before Flight of the Conchords and I didn’t even know them and I might bring it back down the road but the institution thought we were taking the p*** when we were just trying to be funny.’
Fred starts to sing the song and breaks down laughing when he gets to the chorus. There is a remarkable sense of calm and relief surrounding him tonight. It can’t be easy being the bookies’ favourite to get voted off the RTÉ show every week. This week was the first time Fred has not faced the dreaded dance-off, a major confidence boost for the stand-up comic.
‘I’m very shocked. I have put a lot in this week’, he says. ‘I’ve been canvassing at Meath County Council and doing social media and trying to learn the dance so it was full on. You put everything into it and then you have to let go because so much of it is out of your control.
‘I am happy because some weeks I just get dances that don’t suit me as much as others. I have to keep my head above the water with the dances that don’t and I have managed to do it this far. I can’t believe I have made it to week ten. It is Italia 90 stuff this.
‘Look I was considered the joke act at the start, and I get that, but I hope I have proved people wrong. I am definitely not seen as being laissez faire and being the big eejit any more. I have learned my technique.’
The Meath native has been touring the country regularly since 2011, making a name for himself in Irish comedy circles. His surname Cooke with an ‘e’ has also been causing some chatter with regards to the pronunciation. In fact on the first night of the series Fred corrected host Nicky Byrne who had pronounced his name Cook as in someone who works in a kitchen.
‘It has always been Cooke because of the ‘e’ at the end of it. My agent is Cook without the ‘e’. I have had times when people have corrected me and told me that’s not how you pronounce my name but that’s how we have always pronounced it. I don’t mind but I decided to say it on television at the start just to set the record straight from the start.’
Fred is one of those comedian/ actors who seem to have been around the block for years. He also featured multiple times on Irish TV and will be familiar to Republic of Telly viewers. But DWTS has forced him to learn a whole new set of skills which he has struggled at times to master.
‘Concentration has been the hardest part of this process for me. Breathing is something I have struggled to master. It is mad when you say it but just controlling my breathing and the composure you get when you breathe properly has been tough for me to master.
‘I can do it in comedy; Tommy Tiernan taught me how to use it on stage. To walk on stage and to control your breath is now part of the act. Because when you are not in control it is a sign of nerves and you stutter your words.
‘I need to breathe more in the slow songs because there are long arches of dance movement that need large breaths. I see Johnny Ward do it brilliantly so I need to breathe and relax on the slow songs. I am getting better and more focussed and that is because I have gotten this far.’
When the show started bookies pegged him as an 18/1 outside shot to take home the glitterball, brandishing him the joke act; following the likes of Dancing Dessie and Marty Morrissey. Fred, however had different designs and believes he has finally put to bed the tag of ‘joker’.
Of course I believe that I can win the glitterball. I wouldn’t turn up if I didn’t think that
‘If there is one good side to being considered a bit of a joker it is that I have had great variety when it comes to themes and costumes and I have enjoyed that. I haven’t been allowed to take my top off so it is not for the want of trying.
‘When it was switch-up week and my partner Giulia (Dotta) went with Denis (Bastick) he had her doing cartwheels and Denis lifting eh and spinning her around like a basketball with his abs out. I never get to do that. But Giulia was playing to his strengths and the same with me.
‘I am quick-footed and have rhythm and musicality but it all has to work together. I haven’t connected it all together in one dance but I am definitely getting closer.
‘I remember I was talking to my mother after I fell in the dance-off and she told me that I was lucky she had a pacemaker because If she hadn’t she would be dead. I’d have killed my ma. So I better get it right quickly.’
Fred has also appeared in other hit shows such as Bridget and Eamon, Vexed and the Savage Eye. He is very much in love with his girlfriend and fellow comic Julie Jay who he has been dating since May ruling out any prospect of a curse affecting his relationship.
‘We were good from the start and we managed to get over the awkwardness and there was never any fear of the curse.
‘Her boyfriend Kai was hanging out with us as well and he was with Demi. I have always been ok with that and we sort of set the boundaries out immediately and it worked.
‘I have been good at adapting. I went to an all-boys school and I had to learn how to adapt quickly.
‘There is no time for assumption or worry about what people think of me. I have always moved around during the summer and back so I got used to fitting in quickly.
‘I never expected the transformation that this show has given me. Not just losing weight which is great. But it has given me focus. I had it before but I lost it and the last time I had it was the Leaving Cert. The minute I started this show my sleeping, my diet and my activity went through the roof over night.
‘I couldn’t but get fit. After the Leaving I went to college and I slept for five years and I drank as well. Once I became a full-time comedian, forget it. I want to maintain that. Of course I believe I can win it. I wouldn’t turn up if I didn’t.’
The quarter-finals kick off this week with a Eurovision-themed episode and once again Fred is favourite to get the boot. But whatever happens, the comic believes that the future will be much brighter thanks to the dancing show.
‘I am going to go on tour. I do stand-up comedy and I have a new tour called Freed Space and I am going to do Vicar Street and all the arts centres around Ireland.
‘Look the shows are selling better. I have done tours where I am playing the bar upstairs in the theatre instead of the main venue. ‘You have to do that to establish yourself. I have that done and you would hope that something like this is a pedestal to put my character out there. Because my humour is so odd that sometimes you wonder is there a market for it. It is silly and insane.
‘This is such a family show as well. I am delighted that Irish TV took a risk on me.
‘They normally panic with comedians which is understandable because we have so much freedom. Nobody tells us what to say or do on a stage; the only rule is to make people laugh.
‘It is a different ballgame here. You have a responsibility here because kids are watching at home with their parents. I have to hold myself back and not say the wrong thing or swear.
‘I am excited for the future but at the moment I have to just concentrate on just the weeks ahead and not fall again and kill my mother.’