Cork comedy trio CCCahoots have produced their first short film and it mixes the comedy of cringe with Cork's "love/hate relationship" with itself.
After making sketches and surreal vignettes (including a web series for RTÉ about a man who is dating himself), the trio are hoping their new mockumentary, FitzGibbons’ Budget Funerals, will be screened at film festivals and on TV.
The short sees the troupe, who have appeared on Republic of Telly, star in a mockumentary - if you will - about a working class Cork family who start their own cut price funeral directors and true to CCCahoots from, it's full of bad taste and moments of cringe.
Speaking to RTÉ Entertainment, Tadgh Hickey of CCCahoots said, “I came across a thing in the paper about companies in the UK trying to compete with the exorbitant price of funerals and looking for a budget option and I thought that would be a funny in a Cork setting. It just seems classic Cork to get in on something like that.”
The short film, which was also directed by Hickey, has been released for consideration for screenings at upcoming film festivals in London, Edinburgh, Cork and Galway and like everything CCCahoots do, it is pure Cork.
“I think Cork humour is unique,” says Hickey, a former philosophy tutor who now works full time developing ideas and writing sketches with CCCahoots. “It’s a mixture of hating ourselves and loving ourselves at the same time. I think that’s what’s unique about us.
“We’re known for the self-love but we actually hate ourselves too. It’s really kinda dark humour and I’ve always loved that kind of humour.”
Growing up, all three of CCCahoots - Hickey and his comic co-conspirators Laura O’Mahony and Dominic MacHale - were unsurprisingly fans of the cringe humour of Fawlty Towers and later, Ricky Gervais and The Office - the kind of comedy you watch with your hands clamped over your eyes.
“All the guys from CCCahoots love cringe stuff. Larry David was big with us and Ricky Gervais. Any type of comedy where the characters just seem realer than real. Not so much slap stick funny, more it’s funny because it’s real.
"I also think that hasn’t been done that much in an Irish context. Ireland is famous for Father Ted but we’re trying to do an Irish take on cringe comedy.”
Along with The Rubberbandits and Fupin Eejits, CCCahoots are part of a new wave of Irish comedy which began life online before transferring to mainstream TV.
“Online is a huge factor. We supported Rubberbandits recently and we have a good online relationship with the Fuppin’ Eejits; we reach out to fellow comics and we’re interested in each other’s stuff.
"Rubberbandits have proved better than anyone else that if you build up your online following, that’s your audience. You don’t have to really to TV as much as you would have back in the day.
“There’s a mutual support network out there. Your man who runs Waterford Whispers, Colm Williamson, and Fuppin’ Eejits are people I’d obviously be in touch with at least once a month and that’s cool. We look out for each other and as you say, there’s a new wave of Irish comedy coming through and it’s quite exciting because the comedy is original.”
However, the axing of RTÉ2’s satire show Republic of Telly last year means that one important avenue for mainstream exposure has been cut off for emerging comedy talent.
“That was a bummer because we’d actually worked with Eddie Doyle, the Head of Comedy in RTÉ, for the last couple of years. He gave us a pilot at the end of 2015 called Sketch and we made sketches for Republic of Telly last season.
“It was a great stomping ground and we’ve been lucky enough to keep going with Eddie and we're actually developing a sitcom with him at the moment, writing for scripts for that at the moment, so we’ve kept the relationship going. Republic of Telly was a big loss for new creators without a doubt.”
The new sitcom, which will hopefully be aired later this year, is set in a primary school and will include plenty of that comedy of cringe. In the meantime, CCCahoots are continuing to release a new sketch every week on YouTube and are also about to undertake their first national tour.
But back to that budget funeral home - did Hickey and co worry about getting too close to the bone of what is a very sensitive subject?
“Our stuff usually has a splash of the surreal and if there’s a healthy dollop of the surreal it takes it out of the area where people might feel unnerved by what’ going on," he says.
"The performances are very real but the subject matter is often very surreal and if you throw the two of those things together, it takes it away from offending anybody. The film is like an experiment - what would a working class Cork family with notions do if they got into this market that doesn’t exist?”
CCCahoots play Dolan's, Limerick on April 21st, Roisín Dubh, Galway on April 28th, Live at St Luke's, Cork on May 6th, and Whelan's, Dublin on May 11th.
Alan Corr @corralan
