HOGGING THE LIMELIGHT

An Edinburgh Festival Fringe sensation, musical-comedy trio Foil Arms and Hog are coming north to the Granite City

One part of the Irish threepiece comedy trio, Sean Finegan has assigned himself the role of spokesman for Foil Arms and Hog. “It makes life easier for me,” he says, adding drily: “Otherwise I might say something witty and you’d attribute it to one of the other guys.”

We chat about their latest show, Swines, which is touring the UK after a sell-out season at the Edinburgh Fringe, but first Sean explains how the trio met and got their distinctive name.

Sean (Foil), Conor McKenna (Arms) and Sean Flanagan (Hog) were studying at University College Dublin 12 years ago when they met through their shared love of performing.

“We were friends through the drama society but it was Sean Flanagan writing a play based on Father Ted that led to us forming the group,” says Sean.

“He was Dougal, I was Bishop Brennan and Conor was Father Ted. We had permission to tour round Ireland from [Father Ted’s creators] Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews, and when the play finished we decided we should do a sketch show together.”

And the memorable name for the trio came out of good-humoured banter. “We came up with loads of naff names that punned on the word ‘sketch’ and rejected them. And then we were at a party one night and we were slagging each other off and came up with them.

“I’m the straight man so I’m the foil, Conor is all arms and legs and very clumsy on stage and Sean always hogs the limelight and steals all the laughs. They’re roles that we very easily fall into on stage.”

Sean admits that some of the sketches they wrote and performed back then “we wouldn’t get away with now – they were quite insulting to all sorts of people”, but that over the years the humour has become more sophisticated.

That’s probably down to their work ethic. They write separately and then meet almost daily to develop the ideas.

“Ideas get torn to shreds in the process and then we jump on to the idea and add more jokes and develop them. It sometimes takes months to nail a sketch,” said Sean. Do they ever argue?

“Well there are three of us, so it usually works out as two-to-one. No one has ever stormed out, put it that way,” he laughs.

Sean recalled when the group started out. “In the UK there’s a big sketch comedy scene but in Ireland that doesn’t exist. In our early days a lot of people would see three guys come on stage looking like Boyzone or something and they’d be instantly against us. But performing on the same bill with stand-up comics, we learnt so much about audience interaction.

“We learnt pretty quickly and our comedy has become a sort of weird hybrid of sketch and messing with the crowd.”

But Foil Arms and Hog’s audience interaction is not cruel or humiliating. “I hope we’re not,” says Sean. “The intention is to bring everyone on board as it can be terrifying for some people [to be picked on].

“But we love doing it because you never know what the audience may do, and we get a bit of a buzz from it. It’s the element that makes every show unique.”

Foil Arms and Hog have a dedicated following that they have built up over 11 Edinburgh Fringe shows, and for the past six years have posted short films on YouTube – clocking up an astonishing one million hits and 950,000 Facebook followers.

They have a broad demographic too, as Finegan says: “When we look out into the audience and see people from eight to 80 it gives us such a buzz. We have people tell us after a show that their son or daughter has found us online and introduced them to our comedy, and they come to see us together. It’s great.”

● Foil Arms and Hog are performing at the Music Hall in Aberdeen on February 24. For tickets see www. aberdeenperformingarts.com

Ireland’s Foil Arms and Hog get a kick out of playful interaction with their audiences