THE BIG SUNDAY READ Rugby stars dip into my books..i can’t remember what I wrote about them
PAUL Howard says he has never had a run-in with an Irish rubgy ace – although he forgets what he writes about them in his hit series of books.
After 20 years of creating Ross O’carroll Kelly adventures the Dublin author admits he’s always nervous bumping into rubgy legends like Brian O’driscoll.
Paul, 50, told the Sunday Mirror: “My problem is that a whole generation of rugby players dip in and out of my books for 20 years.
“I always forget what I’ve written about each character so when I bump into them it can be awkward.
“Gordon D’arcy rang me about three years ago, I saw his number coming up on my phone and I thought, ‘Oh shit, what’s this about’?
“Because I mentioned him a couple of times in the books, I thought he’s mad at me. When I listened back to the message he wanted me to help him write children’s books.
“They’re called Gordon’s Games, I tell him all the time, ‘You don’t know how close I came to not ringing you back’.
The banter is usually great with the lads until a night where it all went pear-shaped for the writer.
Paul said: “All the rugby lads follow Ross on Twitter and banter with him like Rob Cearney or Jamie Heaslip.
“I haven’t pissed off any of them, but Johnny Sexton came to see one of the shows with Laura, his wife, about six years ago.
“It was called Between Foxrock And A Hard Place.
“Ross’ family were tiger kidnapped and there’s a line in it where Ross says, ‘Did Johnny Sexton send you’?
“When I look up to see Johnny’s reaction he had gone.
“It’s hard to believe that an outhalf who does what he does is shy.
“He said to me afterwards, ‘There were three Johnny Sexton jokes in the first half and every time the entire audience would turn around and look at me’.
“The heat was too much for him so he left.”
Does Paul get panicked about the reaction to his material?
He added: “It’s probably more tough for Podge and Rodge because they crack a joke in a live environment.
“If I crack a joke about someone they might get offended, but you’ve more of an opportunity for the joke to land. I don’t know how they do it, you would need a lot of nerve to do that comedy live.”
Reaching the half-century mark during the pandemic didn’t faze the writer.
Paul said: “I turned 50 in January and I’m not sure how much roar is still in tank.
“You’re looking in the mirror and suddenly you realise there’s a hair four inches long growing out of your neck.
“I was bothered turning 40 but at 50 I stopped caring, I do feel 50, though.” How did Ross take the pandemic? He added:
I turned 50
in January and I’m not sure how much roar is in the tank PAUL HOWARD ON HIS LANDMARK BIRTHDAY
“At this point Ross is looking forward to a day where he doesn’t have to eat banana bread anymore
“In the past year, I’ve been writing a lot of pandemic stuff, Ross has been forced to spend time with his family.
“The next Ross book is out in September, it’s set in 2018 so I’m about two years behind the pandemic but I don’t think there’s going to be a whole lot of nostalgia about this period.
“I don’t think anyone is going to look back and think I want to laugh about that period in our lives.”
After the roaring success of Copper Face Jacks the Musical, Paul hinted a
sequel is in the making.
He said: “I’d love to do a sequel. We were blessed, we got this dream cast and I was envious of them in their 20s – we got so lucky with them.
“I want to bring it back again, we were supposed to tour it around last year, but the pandemic put an end to that.
“We’re all in a Whatsapp group and we’re talking about the day, so it looks like it will be next summer.”
Paul admits as the writer, he’s often in the way.
He added: “As the writer I stay out of the rehearsal room too, we’ve a great director called Karl Harpur, he worked magic on the script and improved it in so many ways.
“Loads of the improvements happened when I wasn’t in the room.
“When the writer’s in the room the actors think you don’t want them to experiment, but when you disappear for three days you come back and do something completely new.
“Ross is my proudest creation, but Coppers was so different.
“People won’t tell you if they found something funny in a book whereas when you put a comedy show on the stage, there’s only one way of finding out if the audience liked it or not and that’s if they laugh.
“It’s a bit nerve-inducing to put something on the stage, the first run of it two years ago it caught the public’s imagination and there was a great word of mouth to it too.
“A week from the end of the run, there wasn’t a ticket to be had, I couldn’t get into the shows by the end.
“I was saying, ‘I’ll stand in the aisle but I wasn’t allowed.”
Before Paul found love with his wife Mary Mccarthy, he admits he regularly found himself hanging out in Coppers.
He said: “I loved it back in my 20s when I was single. I was too ugly to score like the clappers though.
“It was a great place and will be again I’m sure.
“It never had any of those pretensions that many of the Dublin clubs had during the
Celtic Tiger years. It wasn’t full of mirrors to check yourself out, the music ddin’t take itself seriously, there would be a gang of girls wearing the Offaly jerseys.
“It had these floor-filling songs and Cathal, the owner, got right behind the musical.
“But it was kind of like my relationship with Kiely’s.
“At the start Pat and Mary were like, ‘What’s this guys doing?’ what’s he going to do to our pub?
“They did get into it and at the end they had a plaque over the toilet saying, ‘This is where Ross O’carroll Kelly hit and missed over the years’.”