Get your brits out for the lads

This month sees Al Murray bring his celebrated comic character The Pub Landlord to Dublin for a date at the National Stadium. What kind of subjects can we expect the Landlord to address in his latest show?

“Well, I explain the credit crunch,” replies Al. “It’s not difficult. I expect the explanation will be the same in Ireland as it is in Britain. I also explain how human beings can achieve their full potential, prove the existence of God on three separate occasions, and offer a song of hope at the end for these troubled times.”
Good to see he’s not over-stretching himself! Given that the Pub Landlord is a noted British nationalist, one wonders what he will make of Dublin.
“I’ve been before, and he revels in coming to tell Ireland where it’s gone wrong,” says Al. “The biggest mistake they ever made was get rid of us (laughs). All that sort of thing. He’s a little bit jealous of the Irish as well, because we’re starting to tie ourselves in knots in this country about drinking and having a good time, whereas you have the craic and no one’s ashamed of it.”
Presumably, though, he wouldn’t have been too happy with our rugby team’s recent victory over England.
“The Landlord can always explain that away by saying that rugby is an English game, invented by the English,” responds Al. “You’ve got to be grateful that there’s a game that we provided. We win by default, cos it was our idea.”
Aside from live performances, Al has also been keeping busy with several television projects, including the sketch series Al Murray’s Multiple Personality Disorder, and the chat-show Happy Hour. In one especially notable episode of the latter programme, Murray (in character as the Pub Landlord) performed a strip – right down to his Union Jack boxer shorts – for Marilyn Manson’s ex, burlesque star Dita Von Teese. Did Al feel in any way tentative about the stunt?
“The thing with that skit is that we were completely taking the piss out of what she does for a living,” he says. “It was totally on the nose, so the only way to do that is just to get on with it; just fucking do it and see what happens. There was a similar moment in the first show of the last series, where I played drums with Phil Collins, who’s an amazing player. I’ve always been a fan of his playing, so I had to go and do that without thinking to myself, ‘God, the sheer fucking brass neck of me doing this! I’m a comic and I’m going to set myself up to do this!’
“It was one of those moments where afterwards you think, ‘Shit, did we just do that? Have we gotten away with that?’ But he was fine with it, and Dita was cool too. She’s a very cool person, very entertaining and funny – she’s very dry off camera.”
Aside from Phil Collins, another musical guest Murray has welcomed on Happy Hour “Alex is fantastic,” enthuses Al. “He’s such a great bloke, because he’s been there and done it, and he’s quite happy to be a bit louche and interesting. He’s got a phenomenal mind; he’s a very clever man. And smart enough to keep up and all that sort of thing. It was brilliant having him on, he really was extremely cool. The moment a music star says he’s interested in something else, you know he’s an interesting person. It’s the ones who can only talk about their new albums who you’re in the shit with.”
Although Al is an experienced host, he has himself guested on other people’s shows. A few years back, he appeared on Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen. Did he get the hair-dryer treatment at any point?
“Not really, cos I kept my head down and listened to what he said,” reflects Al. “I did as I was told, which is the way to avoid being shouted at. It’s when you don’t do what he tells you that he goes mad. The secret I found is that if you weren’t quite sure, you’d just ask him and he’d show you again. It’s quite interesting – if you go in frightened of him, you will fuck up. Dealing with Gordon, it’s about not being afraid of the bloke in charge, basically.”
Moving back to Happy Hour, Al likes to close each show by performing a Queen number with one of his guests. Is he a big fan of the pomp-rockers?
“No, we thought that if the Pub Landlord was going to be a big fan of one band in the world, it would be Queen,” explains Al. “They’re so British mainstream that it’s ridiculous. But what we wanted to do is make him a one-eyed music fan, because I used to work with a guy who was one-eyed about Duran Duran. He’d say, ‘Duran Duran are the fucking best band in the world, no argument.’ And you’d go, ‘Well, mate, what about The Beatles?’ And he’d reply, ‘No, Duran are the best.’
“So we thought we’d apply that to Queen, because I have met Queen fans who obviously don’t like other music. I think that’s funny. We extended that to the Landlord; the other bands have to play a Queen song, because they’re good but they’re not Queen.”
Finally, one remarkable fact about Murray is that he is a direct descendant of the author William Makepeace Thackeray, who of course wrote Vanity Fair and The Memoirs Of Barry Lyndon. In 1975, the latter book was adapted into a film by Stanley Kubrick. Has Al seen the movie?
“No, I’ve never gotten around to watching that, funnily enough,” he says. “Apparently it’s fantastic. The problem is that it’s one of his trickier books. I’ve tried the book, but maybe I need to save myself some time and watch the film!”

Al Murray plays the National Stadium, Dublin on March 28. Time Gentlemen Please and Happy Hour: Series 2 are out now on DVD.