‘Having a laugh any way I can’ — Pat
IN the D’Unbelievables, there was talk of “having the dinner at half eight in the morning so we’ll have a clear run at the day”.
Pat Shortt hasn’t reached that stage yet on Covid-19 lockdown in Co Limerick with his wife and three children.
“I try and get up early every day,” says Shortt, who first came to fame as one half of the D’Unbelievables in the late 1980s with Jon Kenny. “I make a coffee and then go and wake up everyone in the house. That gets a varied reaction. Gives me a laugh.
“I plan dinner because that is the highlight of the day. I try and do a bit of work. I cut the grass. Basically, I do anything that will delay the opening of a bottle of wine or a beer.
“I have mild success with that each day. Overall, I’m doing fine and having a laugh every which way I can.”
Is wife Caroline entertained with endless comedy routines, intentional or otherwise, around the house? “That is a very funny question. She is the hardest person I have to make laugh. So I will definitely be stage-fit by the time this is all over.
“There is never an audience harder than your own family,” adds Pat, in lockdown with Caroline and children Fay, Lily Rose and Ludaigh.
How has all this affected his writing, his comedy, his personal sense of humour?
“Well, I’m not immune to the terrible news out there,” he says. “All our work stopped and when we get back to work no one knows. But the only consolation is that we are all in the same boat and I know there are people in a more unstable situation than myself.
“That said, it’s hard to sometimes sit down and think funny. I always must be in the zone to write and think funny. I generally do not find that hard but now it is a challenge some days. Thankfully, my family are in great form and we are getting through this together.”
In the meantime, Pat’s classic comedy Killinaskully about the unusual goings-on in a fictional Irish village is being aired again, starting tonight on RTE One at 8pm. The last episode was shown 12 years ago but it stands up, he says, because of its timelessness.
“We didn’t tie it into any particular time. It is in its own world and time zone. It’s about real Irish characters and the daftness that goes on and is acceptable in rural Ireland in an odd type of way,” says Pat.
And what would the Killinaskully characters be doing during the lockdown?
Dan Clancy? “He would be in isolation with his sister
Bridie in their cottage on the outskirts of Killinaskully. Most likely going through the horrors, not from the lack of drink but due to Jackie’s being closed and having to talk to his sister.”
The Widow Gilhooley? “Who is not in the habit of repeating herself... she would be constantly saying the Rosary with a shrine built in a dug-out shelter waiting for the final hour, not week.”
Goretti? “She would manage to power walk the 2km there and 2km back while observing social distancing but later would embrace social media and a good bottle of Rioja.”
And Garda Sergeant Dick O’Toole? “He would be making his own hand sanitiser. From poteen and tonic water with a splash of orange juice.”
You won’t get away with that here.