The Real Mrs. Brown: The Authorised Biography of Brendan O'Carroll (18 page)

‘Then, one day in January 1995, I was asked by a journalist what I planned to do in the year ahead, and I said, “I think I’ll write a play for the Dublin Theatre Festival and stage it myself.”’

Brendan had never written a play before. He hadn’t actually seen more than a couple of theatre plays, apart from the Christmas shows and revues. Nor had he ever produced one, or hired actors, booked theatres, etc. It was an entirely insane idea, particularly as he was still carrying The Abbot’s Castle debt, and had a mortgage and family to look after.

So of course he had to go ahead.

‘I was aware that a Dublin writer hadn’t been premiered at the Festival in eighty-five years, so I thought I’d have a go,’ he says with the casualness of a man who’s just declared he’s off to buy new socks.

Maureen O’Carroll was gone but she continued to influence her son’s life. Brendan was once again looking over the edge of a crevasse, but his mammy gave him the courage to leap to the other side.

And, after all, he’d written a bestselling novel at the first attempt. Why wouldn’t he be able to replicate this feat in Theatreland?

While making the announcement, Brendan had avoided mentioning the name of the play or indeed the subject matter. Not because he was being deliberately coy. It was because he hadn’t a clue what it was going to be about. He was desperate for an idea. Think positive. Come on Brendan, it’s all about having the right Positive Mental Attitude. That’s what the course taught you, wasn’t it? Yes, the PMA course you had to undertake as part of the job with the insurance company. When you walked away from that course you believed you could conquer a mountain range that Edmund Hillary would have walked away from.

Now, all you have to do is put on a play. You can come up with a premise.

And there it was. He’d call it
The Course
, of course.

And so he came up with the story of a group of ‘losers’ who sign up for a Positive Mental Attitude seminar.

The play’s central character, Joe Daly, played by Brendan, gives courses to a motley bunch of seeming no-hopers, and he gets a good bonus for every person who passes the exams.

Everything is going well until the American supervisor, Burt Rubenstein, arrives, reckons Daly to be a scammer, and threatens to close down the course – unless everyone passes the exam.

‘So I started all the basics, trying to work out how many characters I needed, writing them in, rubbing them out. And I realised that you become God when you write a play.’

Once he had the idea, the shape of the play began to form quickly, and he came up with his oddball cast of characters, which included a prostitute, a golf widow, an alcoholic, a resting actor and a country bumpkin. Brendan/God loved creating this new world, to be played out on stage later that year.

Meanwhile, during that summer, Brendan picked up the Entertainer of the Year
Award at the National Concert Hall in Dublin. Brendan and Gerry sang ‘Hey, Paddy’ and Brendan forgot the words. It didn’t matter; the pals had a great night. And were delighted to be introduced to U2. Gerry took the chance to mention to lead singer Bono that he used to deliver milk to his family home in Ballymun. It put a smile on his face to think he’d supplied the snap, crackle and pop to the pop star’s Rice Krispies.

Brendan also landed his first film job, appearing as Weslie in Roddy Doyle’s mobile-chip-shop adventure,
The Van
. Brendan loved the filming, and became pals with the writer.

During filming, however, Brendan received a rather unwelcome phone call.

‘It was from the Dublin Theatre Festival office and the person on the end of the line sounded very serious. They wanted me to give up the theatre to some Italian Circus Opera.

‘The Italian production had been booked into the town’s Andrews Lane Theatre, which was too small. So they wanted me to swap. They wanted me to swap theatres.’

Producers rarely play musical theatres with their plays. Audiences don’t like to migrate. Publicity has to be remounted. But the Festival office didn’t see the problem.

Brendan did. He was hugely resentful. He felt that the Theatre Festival people were making him out to be the bad guy, forcing him into a very difficult position. And being cavalier. This was theatre royalty treating him like a Johnny-come-lately, a lowly subject.

Thankfully, Roddy Doyle was quick to encourage his fellow writer.

‘Roddy took me aside and said, “You cannot let these people do this. You’ve got to do it yourself, outside of the Festival Theatre umbrella.”’

Yes, why not? He still had the Tivoli. He still had the backing of Tony Byrne. Three days later, Brendan picked up the phone to hear a very friendly co-producer on the line.

‘Tony was an avid golfer and he asked me to go for a round with him, at Holystown (the North Dublin suburb where Brendan would later live).

‘So we started playing golf and we got to talking. At about the fourth or fifth hole he said something strange to me. He said, “You know, when I told people in the theatre business that I was going to co-produce this theatre play with you, a man with no theatre experience, they told me not to touch you with a ten-foot bargepole.”

‘And so we moved on to the next hole. But at the sixth hole Tony said to me, “I got a call from the Theatre Festival.”

‘And right then I knew. He had been leaned on. So he opened up a bit and said, “What do you think about their problem, Brendan?”

‘“Well, exactly that. It’s their problem, Tony.”

‘“I’d like to help them out.”

‘“If you want to do that, you’d better build a theatre very quickly, because you’re not getting the one I have.”

‘“Well, I am joint producer.”

‘“Yes, Tony. But you came in as co-producer after I had rented the theatre. That rental arrangement stands. I rented the theatre and I’m lending it to the joint production.”

‘“If that’s the case, Brendan, I’m pulling out of the joint production.”

‘“You’re kidding! That’ll leave me about thirty-five grand short.”

‘“Look, Brendan, that’s the way it is. I have to think about my reputation within the theatre industry.”

Tony certainly didn’t want to incur the wrath of the theatre inner circle. Meanwhile, the golf match continued. And when the pair, now operating in something of a cold silence, reached the ninth hole, Tony was three shots in front. But by the end of the game, Brendan had won by five shots.

‘I was feckin’ determined to whup his arse. During the last rounds, he tried to talk about the play, but I just put him down saying, “Tony, from the ninth tee off, you were no longer producing the show. I don’t want to talk about it with you.”

‘“Well, I want to explain . . .”

‘“You don’t have to explain. The show is nothing to do with you. Let’s play golf.”’

After the match, Brendan was furious, and desperate too, given he had to find the extra £35k to open his play. But when he arrived home there was worse news. He picked up the phone to hear a
Dublin Herald
journalist ask: ‘Have you seen the paper?’

‘And there it was in the Arts section of the
Irish Times
. It read:
Dublin Theatre Festival Rejects Brendan O’Carroll Play
.

‘So I went through the story to see what excuse they had come up with. And the copy revealed the play had been rejected because it wasn’t up to the standard required by the Festival.

The Theatre Festival boss Tony O’Dalaigh didn’t expand on his reasons and Brendan had no idea why his play was turned down. It transpires however Tony O’Dalaigh thought
The Course
to be ‘derivative’, the idea a little too close to the 1975 play
Comedians
, by Trevor Griffiths, about a bunch of comedy losers who are transformed by a course.

Brendan meantime was in despair. The dream of writing a hit play seemed stuck in a bunker with Tony Byrne’s last shot.

Thankfully, that same night the forlorn writer had a visit from Gerry Browne and Tommy Swarbrigg, who now arranged Brendan’s stand-up bookings. At least he could rely on support from his right-hand man and one of his trusted lieutenants.

Or so he thought.

‘Gerry actually seemed pleased at this bad news. Now, he wasn’t trying to get one over on me; he had his own reasons for not wanting it to go ahead. I think it’s because he really didn’t want to do the play.’

It seems hard to believe Gerry didn’t want success for his friend.

‘He did. But he wanted our world to stay the same, to carry on with the comedy shows. His thinking was, “Stick with what you’re good at.” I wanted Gerry with me. I wanted him up there on stage with me and said to him, “Gerry, take some acting classes.” But he never bothered. He was scared, I guess. Yet, I knew he could act. He was a natural.’

Gerry denies all this. He says he wanted to move forward with the idea of the play. He had no idea whether his friend could write a play, but he assumed it was possible. After the success of
The Mammy
books, anything was possible.

‘Tommy was also accepting of the bad news. He said to me, “Now I don’t want to add fuel to the fire, Brendan, but you have to accept that the Theatre Festival people have been in this business a long time. You have to accept they know what they’re talking about.”

The Theatre Festival pressure, and the fact that his friends weren’t exactly stoking the fires of encouragement, took its toll on Brendan. Regardless, he went off and finished his play. And he felt he had written a decent comedy. But given the obstacles in his way, PMA just wasn’t kicking in.

‘I was so low. And by early September, just a few weeks before the play was to go on stage, I was seriously considering throwing in the towel.’

The metaphor was appropriate. Even a helicopter ride the following day to a World Boxing Championship couldn’t lift Brendan’s spirits.

‘On this Friday, I had a helicopter picking me up to take me to Cork, where a friend of mine, Steve Collins, was fighting Chris Eubank for the middleweight title.

‘It was their second fight. Steve had won the first because Eubank was out of sorts. And we all knew that this time around Eubank was going to kill him. Or we thought we knew.

‘I had really been looking forward to this fight, but on the flight I was so low I never spoke to a soul. I was so gutted. I was the same during the limo journey. Wrecked at the thought of the play being pulled.’

At the ringside, an RTÉ producer approached Brendan and mentioned that Jimmy Magee, the well-known boxing commentator, had spotted him on one of the cameras.

‘Jimmy knew I’d boxed and wanted me to go over and do a piece to camera, and so I did. It went fine, and I managed to sound upbeat, and we talked about Steve’s new style, which meant throwing bombers, big punches that would upset Eubank’s style. It was hoped to turn it into a scrap, because if that were the case the street fighter – Steve – would win.

‘And as we were talking about the fight plan, I looked up at the monitors and could see the fighters arrive. And I found myself staring at the screen. I could see Steven’s face under the hood, the close-up, and I could read his lips. And they were saying, “Still the champ. Still the champ . . .” And that was something I had told him earlier: “As long as you are still standing, you are still the champ. And you don’t stop being the champ until that fight’s over.”

‘And there he was, in that ring, saying to himself, “Still the champ.” And at that moment it dawned on me. I thought, “
I’m
still the champ.”’

Steve Collins certainly was. He bombed Eubank from every direction. Eubank was completely disorientated and Collins retained the World Championship.

‘We flew back to Dublin the next day. And of course the press were now ringing me non-stop for a reaction to the news about the Festival dropping the play. I said I was disappointed, but added that since I had promised so many of the Dublin public they would see the play, I wasn’t going to let them down. My thinking? “I’m still the champ. I can win here.”’

What? How? His co-producer had walked off at the ninth tee. The Festival had announced they didn’t want an O’Carroll play. And Brendan reckoned Gerry wasn’t fully committed.

‘I told the press the play would go ahead, at a little Fringe Festival, and it would be taking part in Francis Street, at the Tivoli.’

Tony Byrne freaked at the news. He pleaded with Brendan, saying he couldn’t take the theatre show, that it would ruin relations with the Theatre Festival office. And the Tivoli boss argued the negative publicity would kill off
The Course
’s chances of success.

Brendan argued back that he
had
to take over the Tivoli, and that, rather than garner negative publicity, ‘the neggie would be turned into a possie.’ How? He worked out a plan with Rory. On every newspaper ad for the show he would be printing the tag line:
The play that Dublin Festival rejected.

‘And I added that I wanted to thank Tony O’Dalaigh for singling me out as the only unique play.’

The newspapers loved Brendan’s sheer balls and ran riot with the story. Now, he had the most talked-about play ever to hit Dublin. And he talked it up even more. During a series of radio interviews, he turned the news of Festival rejection around, saying he was delighted his play had been turned down. The hopeful playwright stressed that the Festival plays were for the elite – while his plays ‘were for the people who liked a bag of crisps and a laugh.’