Kelly Shatter's new project has earned comparisons to Sharon Horgan's Catastrophe

Growing up, Kelly Shatter had one main ambition in life - to appear on the cover of Hot Press. "I was one of those teens that sung in front of the mirror with a hairbrush. I used to imagine myself on the front cover of Hot Press," she confesses.
"I wanted to be the lead singer in a band where I could get by on my charisma as I had no natural singing ability. Thankfully for the music world," she adds, self-effacingly, "I never pursued my singing career!"

Therefore, it's not surprising that Kelly was somewhat envious when her father, Alan Shatter - the former Minister for Justice under Enda Kenny's regime - beat her to the punch last November by appearing in the main Hot Press Interview slot. It was a no-holds-barred interview that generated acres of media coverage at the time, which has often been the case with many a political interview published right throughout our magazine's 41 year history.

Kelly, who prefers to describe herself as a writer "so it takes the pressure off having to be funny", says that her father is light years removed in person from the serious persona we're accustomed to seeing of him on telly. This is something I can attest to as, ever since I interviewed him for Hot Press, Alan Shatter regularly sends me jokes and memes on WhatsApp.

Kelly nods. "Yes, dad is a funny guy for sure. Him and mum are like a comedy duo. They've been married for so long that when they have little fights, it's like watching someone have an argument with themselves!" she proffers. "His book, Life Is A Funny Business, is really funny in parts too. Often, when I go to visit mum and dad, something will happen that'll have us all crying with laughter. I consider that to be pretty special. There's nothing better then crying with laughter."

It's not unusual these days for an Irish politician's kid not to go down the conventional route of a nine to five gig and to choose a precarious career in the arts instead. As Kelly points out, "There's a whole gang of us in the arts whose parents were in politics: David Kitt, Mark Fitzgerald, Cecelia Ahern, to name a few. We meet once a month for tea and cake."
She mightn't have made it onto the illustrious cover of Hot Press as a popstar. But, nevertheless, Kelly is grinning from ear to ear like a Cheshire cat with the satisfaction of now finally appearing in these pages to promote season two of her hilarious and edgy web series, Long Dark Twenties.

The first season, which Kelly co-wrote with Kevin Handy and Luke Benson, was done on a budget of "zero". After it garnered a fistful of positive reviews, the trio were able to get some investors onboard to finance a second season, which has just gone live on YouTube and Facebook.

Kelly admits that they had no idea what the hell they were doing when they started out making the show. "My co-writers, Kevin Handy and Luke Benson, both studied film so we were able to pull the first season together. We had two cameras and no plan. We wrote it as we went along, filming at the weekend over a period of six months," she says, shaking her head at the memory of it all.
"The second season was totally different. We spent six months writing more ambitious scripts and then, with the help of the improv community and online fans, we raised over €8,000 on Kickstarter to hire a crew. We filmed over five consecutive days for four episodes. The days were long and the pace was fast so it was great training."

Long Dark Twenties has been compared by the Irish Post to Sharon Horgan's Catastrophe. "It's a comedy about two best friends, who, no matter what the odds, can always put their heads together and make everything worse. I would say at the core it's a show about support and how a good friend can make light of the bad times," Kelly says.
The youthful-looking 35-year-old makes no bones about the fact that her ambition is for Long Dark Twenties to get picked up by a TV network, or by the likes of Netflix or Amazon.

"We went the route of a web series because we wanted to be in control of the creative process, and to give it time to find its voice," she explains. "Broad City was a major influence. They got picked up by Comedy Central on the back of their web series." Kelly opted to create our own vehicle to star in after becoming exasperated trying to break into the acting scene both here and in the UK. Coming from a Jewish heritage and with pretty Mediterranean looks, Kelly found that this all went against her when she was going up for certain 'Oirish' roles.

She's able to laugh about it now, but she had a bizarre audition for the BBC. Picking up the story, Kelly explains: "I was once flew to London for a part as an Irish teen in EastEnders. The minute I got in the room for the audition they told me that I didn't look Irish enough! Did they not see my headshot?! I looked like a small Spanish student. Why didn't they work that out before I got on the plane - that I paid for with my unemployment money."

Does Kelly's Jewish heritage inspire her comedy?
"Absolutely," she says, nodding. "There's a constant absurd dissatisfaction with the minutiae of daily life that I've certainly seen growing up. It's rubbed off on me." She makes herself sound like she's a regular Larry David. "Take going out for dinner: I could easily change tables three times," she confesses.

"I need the perfect temperature, not too noisy and a good 'feel'. That's a lot to ask for in a table.
That's where Irish and Jewish sensibility is most different: the Irish will say, 'It's grand,' and complain to their mates; Jewish people will openly complain regardless of what people think. I have the actions of a Jewish person and the inner thoughts of an Irish person. It's exhausting."

On a more serious note, did she ever experience any Anti-Semitism growing up?
"The term scabby Jew was thrown around a lot when I was a kid as a way of slagging someone who didn't share their snacks. It was never used directly on me though," she says. "I went out of my way to prove to people that I was generous. I'm probably only a generous person now because I had to prove the ignorant kids wrong. However you get there I guess..."

Kelly admits that she can no longer look up in admiration at some of her fallen comedic idols - such as Louis C.K. - who were exposed as sex predators by the #MeToo maelstrom. Earlier this Samantha Geimer, who was raped as a 13-year-old by film director Roman Polanski, told Hot Press that it was acceptably fine to separate the art from the person. In our exclusive interview, Samantha insisted that she had no issue with anybody enjoying a Polanski film. But Kelly isn't as forgiving.

"Nope, I'm not able to separate the work from the art. I want to feel like I can trust the artist as art is such a fragile, nebulous thing," she maintains. She may ambitious, but Kelly insists that she would vomit if asked to work with the likes of Woody Allen, and then tell him to take a hike.
"It's all too raw and I'm too angry. I'm not judging anyone who does, but I wouldn't eat a meal cooked by a someone dripping sweat into the food - regardless of how good a chef they are."

Does Kelly have any of her own #MeToo experiences?
"There are so many micro instances throughout a lifetime when you're a women," she begins. "We've all had things happen of varying degrees. I once had a guy I was working with put a camera under my skirt and take a picture. The bar was the Old Tavern in Lagos, Portugal. If you ever want to go and cause trouble, I'd be delighted."

Kelly pauses to laugh, but you wonder if she's being deadly serious or not!
It was actually the critically acclaimed US comedian Tina Fey who inspired Kelly to try her hand at stand-up. "I was skirting around the edges of comedy for years and then I saw 30 Rock and I decided I wanted to be Tina Fey. We already had similar glasses so I had a head start," she jokes.

"I Googled her background and found out she had studied this thing called Long Form Improv, which I'd never heard of. I did some research and then a year later went to study improv in L.A. I only took the course to become a better comedy writer but improv pretty much took over my life. When I came home, I set up a school teaching improv (Stoke) so there was no turning back."

"Ultimately, with comedy I like the fact that you can entertain as well as pack a punch. I find if something is too dark up top, I shut down. If there's humour there, you can really open people up to a story and then 'Bam' you land them with something difficult or thought provoking. They think they're there to laugh - but actually they're there to feel."

Key has certainly achieved this aim with Long Dark Twenties, which is both funny and thought provoking. There's a quote from Hot Press that she can use when the DVD comes out.

You can stream Long Dark Twenties on the following links:
https://www.facebook.com/longdarktwenties/ https://goo.gl/vsWXNA