The biggest head in comedy belongs to Patrick McDonnell. This is not the start of a Hoot Press hatchet job on a stand up with an inflated ego. God knows there’s a series and a half in that, but McDonnell wouldn’t be high on the list of candidates for taking down in that fashion. On the contrary, he is among the more down-to-earth characters you are likely to encounter in that jungle of nerve-driven predators: not self-effacing, just matter-of-fact and to the point. It’s a layer of Louth realism which masks a highly personal, almost cartoonish, comic sensibility. They are hardened men from the borders, but they are mad men too. No. It’s just that Patrick has a very big head. Try your hat on him if you don’t believe me.

Were he looking for gas to inflate the ego, McDonnell would not have to look far. Following up his appearances in RTE 2’s Stew last year, he is currently surfing a wave of popularity generated by the hidden camera exploits of Naked Camera. Along with PJ Gallagher and Maeve Hickey, Pat is one of the trio of comedy ambushers in RTE’s current contribution to the relentless flood of “reality”-based television entertainment. Despite a seemingly tired premise, that of pretending to be a crazy or annoying character in order to bamboozle some hapless citizen for the entertainment of viewers, this show is managing to strike a chord with viewers. (Ahead of the fourth in the series of six half hour programmes, viewing figures had jumped from 175,000 to 222,000, a claimed audience share of 19%, and the show is being repeated on Sundays as well as shown in its Monday night slot.)
Maybe it’s just because all you really have to do to get an Irish person laughing is show them another Irish person in an even more miserable situation than they are, but that would be a little unfair in this case. What sets Naked Camera apart somewhat from the dodgy item it might have been is the genuine humour coming from the characters that have been devised by the protagonists to unleash on the public. Whether by accident or design, all three bring comic sensibility and acting ability at a level well above the benchmark for this type of escapade.
Funnily enough, one of the biggest hits on the show, comedian PJ Gallagher, was not even involved in the original shooting dates. He came in as replacement for Brendan Dempsey when the latter abandoned ship to take a role in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest in Edinburgh & London last year.
“Brendan preferred to go swanning round the West End, rather than wandering round Temple Bar looking for punters to trick,” explains McDonnell, who immediately suggested PJ as a replacement. “When PJ came on board it really took off. The first skit we did with him was in a hardware shop where he played a gangster head buying items obviously intended for a ‘hit’. It worked brilliantly but they wouldn’t let us show it. Then we went into an estate agents down the road and PJ went in as the same character to buy a house for cash with no paperwork and that worked brilliantly too.”
One of the reasons Patrick had urged the inclusion of PJ was his experience in similar territory working as sometime TV sidekick to Jason Byrne. But some people don’t even need the excuse of a TV programme to go a-tricking and a-japing. Patrick: “It turns out PJ had done a lot of this kind of thing before just for fun with his mates.”
Did Patrick and co. have no fear of verbal or even physical negative reaction on the part of those being duped?
“You did get a few people freaking out at you during the skit,” he admits, “but then they’d just be happy it was only a hidden camera show and just relieved and a bit embarrassed. One or two people did get very annoyed and started demanding the tapes and threatening to sue RTE, but I think it was only once or twice and they never actually followed through.”
Nothing would be shown if the punters involved weren’t happy to be the object of laughter on air, and they had to sign a release form before they could be used. Of those who objected, there was a distinct rural/urban split with those from the country proving the cagier: “People in the country would be worried about being the talk of the parish.”
As well as the danger of “victims” withholding permission for their bemusement to be broadcasted, there was also a certain amount of recorded material being rendered useless by the accosted individual or a passer-by recognising the comedian at work. In these cases it was mostly Patrick who was the problem. He still retains a high recognition factor from his guest appearance as “Eoin McLove” in an episode of Father Ted. Even leaving that aside, Patrick just has a recognisable sort of a head on him (see above).
Shooting on a shoestring budget without even a makeup person didn’t help. Such disguise as they had was gleaned from the RTE wardrobe dept., and the facilities in that regard weren’t necessarily reliable. “You’d turn up and the shoes you’d get would be different from the last time, or you’d be given a hat and a pair of glasses and that was your disguise. People would still recognise me through that,” laments Patrick. The other two performers were more impervious to this danger, Maeve being relatively new to TV and PJ possessing an everyman quality, which meant he was seldom recognised, despite numerous previous TV appearances with Jason Byrne and a heavily broadcast TV advertisement in the recent past.
Does this mean that in a second series Patrick would have to withdraw behind the camera? And will the success of the current series work against the Naked Camera crew, as the resulting recognition factor prevents them doing the same again? McDonnell agrees it’s an issue but has the solution: “If RTE give us €2 million next time instead of two euro we can spend more on prosthetics and we’ll be grand. We’ll definitely have a make-up girl next time anyway.”
While he waits to see if there is sufficient money set aside for wig purchases in the next RTE budget, McDonnell has plenty to occupy him. He has worked as a live comic steadily in recent times, having supported Joe Rooney on his tour last year, following on from an opening slot for Deirdre O’Kane before that. He also enjoyed opening for Tommy Tiernan in Vicar Street immensely this year. But then, any gig in Vicar Street is enjoyable: we agree it’s the comic equivalent of working in zero gravity. “You’re there thinking: ‘This is easy! Why amn’t I huge?’ Then you go back down to the small clubs with a bump and go. ‘Oh. Right. This is the level’.”
That’s the matter-of-fact business again, but it’s straying into self-deprecation. McDonnell is in fact a highly amusing and entertaining stand up who could grace the top of a bill in Vicar Street or any other theatre of comedy without too much trouble at all. Indeed it is strongly suggested that Patrick, PJ and Maeve will further capitalise on their current TV exposure by doing a Vicar Street show this summer (though no date is confirmed at time of writing), thus making it even more difficult for them to do another season of Naked Camera in the future. Trying to be helpful I suggest that Patrick get around this problem by confining himself to characters such as talking ATM machines. There’s a pause before he responds. “No. No. I don’t think there’s much depth in the ATM character. No. Sorry, now. No.”