Chasing the last laugh

Fresh from the success of a second series of his satirical and anarchic 'The Savage Eye', comedian David McSavage tells RÓISÍN INGLEthat if he'd had his own way he wouldn't have written about Ireland at all

WHEN I TEXT a comedy writer friend to tell him I am about to interview David McSavage his reply is immediate and gushing: “A genius. The only comedian in Ireland who makes me feel genuine fear while watching him.”

He’s got a point.

There was something deeply disturbing about much of McSavage's series The Savage Eye, which came to an end recently, attracting twice the viewers of the first series. McSavage's mockumentary-style programme about modern Ireland, incorporating vox pops from the public and various high-profile commentators, was often hilarious and just as often difficult to watch.

Whether it was bizarrely grotesque caricatures of Mary Robinson or Joe Duffy or his scarily good impression of Seamus "turf, turf, turf" Heaney or the excoriating sketches on everyone from hospital consultants to cardboard cut-out politicians to paedophile priests, few ugly truths or endearing idiosyncrasies were left unexamined. The Savage Eyeis a surreal world where the traditional Irish B&B stands for Bed & Bestiality and where the pub landlord is creepy enough to give you post-viewing nightmares. The motto on The Savage Eyefamily crest appears to be: "Are you sitting uncomfortably? Then we'll begin."

The 45-year-old comedian arrives in to the bar wearing a dark green velvet smoking jacket and orders spearmint tea which he says, with the air of a man who has looked into these things, is good for the stomach. McSavage is part of the Andrews political dynasty – “family business at a push,” he corrects, “this is too small a country for dynasties, it’s hardly Ming” – which includes his grandfather Todd, his father, David, and his brother, Barry. When we meet, his brother is in the last days of fighting to retain his seat in Dún Laoghaire. “His campaign was going so badly he asked me to come along dressed as a minister,” he smiles. “I did it for the laugh.”

The audience reaction to the second series of The Savage Eyewas much better than it was for the first series. Twitter lit up with praise for McSavage when the programme appeared. He says he understands why the second series proved more popular: "Because it's on RTÉ, people assume it's shit, so you are fighting against that perception in the beginning."

Not a fan of the patriot game, if McSavage had his way, The Savage Eyewouldn't have been about Ireland at all. "The only reason I made the programme about Ireland was to get it commissioned, because we are so insular. It always has to be about Ireland – Ireland this and Ireland that – so with The Savage Eye, Ireland is just the subtext for 'why do people do what they do?'"

He works with three other writers, his “comedy barometers”, and the cast includes strong acting talents such as Patrick McDonnell, who he credits as an important part of the success of the series.

McSavage believes most Irish comedy around at the moment is "mainstream and boring", although he doesn't name names. He is good friends with Eleanor Tiernan – who also stars in The Savage Eye– and PJ Gallagher but his anarchic leanings have seen him falling out with a lot of fellow comedians over the years.

“Irish comedy today is not bent and twisted and risky, which is what comedy should be,” he says. “That’s why I was delighted to see Rubberbandits emerge because they were f**king mental . . . up until recently, the only people who were doing anything risky were puppets. We should be mature enough to see adults doing risky stuff.”

He claims to be impervious to the venom, especially online, his performances generate. Depending on who you ask he is either, as my friend attests, a genius or the most witless comedian this country has produced. “I am a bit immune to all that stuff and probably more excited than anything else that people are talking about me. I like the idea that they are being outraged,” he says.

It’s not as though criticism never stings. He remembers a stinking review for his first gig in Edinburgh which he calls “shocking . . . a punch in the gut”.

He says that when you get comedy wrong, people take it as a personal attack. “But what are you gonna do? You can only sit on the couch and eat biscuits and rock back and forth for so long . . . it’s also good motivation to be able to say ‘f**k you’ to the detractors. That is part of the (adopts his uncannily accurate Pat Kenny voice) fuel that powers my engine.”

In person, he is naturally funny and excellent company, a gifted mimic eager for laughs. In terms of his motivation for his chosen career, McSavage has spoken in the past of not getting enough attention from his father as a child, except when he made him laugh. “Are you a trained psychoanalyst?” he asks when I bring this up. Later he recalls moments when his father would ask him what his goals were, which was difficult for a young David Andrews, as he was then, who didn’t fit the “teacher, doctor, lawyer” mould.

“Dad would be asking me about my goals and he’d have objects in front of him on his desk. As I was trying to give him some kind of coherent answer, he was arranging the objects in front of him, as though they were a manifestation of what he wanted to be able to do with me.”

McSavage moves a mobile phone and a cup and a saucer around on the table in front of him to illustrate. “Put this bit there, that thing there . . . he couldn’t control me but he could control the objects. It was as though if he could make everything ordered some of it might translate on to me.”

It didn’t, of course.

McSavage left the country as soon as he could, spending time in Japan, Germany, America and Denmark. He was once arrested in Edinburgh for using the word “penis” in his street act – the case was thrown out – and in Dublin, crowds flocked to his street shows which mostly consisted of embarrassing passersby who strayed into the comedian’s view. He only gave up busking a year ago. It was a cruel kind of comedy wasn’t it?

“Not all cruel. There was charm too, there had to be if I was going to make a living from it. People don’t know me at all. Sometimes there was cruelty and sometimes there were great acts of humanity, but you don’t hear about them,” he smiles to himself.

McSavage, who has been married for 17 years and is father to two sons Jack, 11, and Daniel, 17, hasn’t had an alcoholic drink since December 8th, 2003.

“When I tell people I don’t drink it’s like they can’t get their head around how that works . . . we have to be drunk in Ireland to have a good time. Alcohol advertising should be banned and more pubs should close and these publicans who we elevate in society should scuttle back under their rocks. I’d like to open a non-alcoholic pub, I would if I was a millionaire.”

You wouldn't rule it out but until then, with the latest series of The Savage Eyeover and a standup gig in Vicar Street fast approaching, he is trying to work out what his next move should be. He'd like to write a film.

“And I’d like it to be really, really good and it would be another ‘f**k you’ to the detractors . . . I’d like to write an Irish film that rattles along and is funny in a way that most Irish comedies are not.”

He is proud of The Savage Eye. "I think it will stand the test of time. I think if you didn't know any of the people in it you would still find it funny."

Still, he knows he has yet to win over a lot of people.

"When I watch The Savage Eye, I see loads of mistakes and I just want to improve it so much that it gets to the point where even the most curmudgeonly bastard hack would look at it and the humour will go through to their stony hearts and make them laugh. If you can make the people who hate you laugh, then you are doing well".

David McSavage performs in Vicar Street on Saturday March 5th