The Blindboy Podcast - Roddy Doyle

Episode Date: October 23, 2018

A conversation with booker prize winning writer, and national treasure, Roddy Doyle Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ja bless, you fawning borrowers. Have you been having a lovely, a lovely gentle week? Have you been having good crack? Huh? Welcome to the Blind Boy Podcast. Um, so this is episode number 55. And I believe the date is October 24th. Which means that we have passed our one year fucking anniversary for this podcast.

We started it a year ago on October 17th. As a way to launch my book. My book of short stories and this podcast originally I only intended it to be a couple of episodes long I didn't particularly expect it to have a lot of listeners either but here we are and it's great crack

checking in with you every single fucking week I love it I like how it's great crack checking in with you every single fucking week I love it I like how it's developing I can't wait to see where we'll be in a year's time it's got nice momentum it's I like the surprise of

not really knowing what I'm going to talk about next week do you know I like the joy of that I like the surprise of not really knowing what I'm going to talk about next week. Do you know? I like the joy of that. I like the joy of a little thought coming into my head and going, I'm going to save that one for the podcast next week. So thank you very much for coming along for the journey

and having crack with me and listening and recommending it to your friends and fucking giving it reviews and all of this carry on you know thank you so much I really really appreciate it

and yeah I just did not think a year later I'd be here with the fucking podcast and we'd have nearly a million listeners a month. Holy fuck. From all around the world.

Ridiculous. But let's keep it going. So last week, last week was a mad one. I enjoyed, actually I liked last week, it was a good crack. You know, there was a bit of chat about body image, a bit of chat about exercise, and some chat about Buddhism and asceticism. Asceticism.

A weird thing happened this week, and it harks back to a previous podcast. I was talking about... This was about, I don't know, 40 podcasts ago. I was talking about this was about I don't know 40 podcasts ago I was talking about UFOs and asking ye have ye ever seen

a fucking UFO so last night I went about out the back garden and looked up into the sky and what I saw was

a very bright flashing object in the horizon okay and it was moving slowly

in one direction getting really bright disappearing getting really bright disappearing and then around it were smaller flashes of lights

so I'm looking at it and I'm going here we go it's a UFO I'm finally after all these So I'm looking at it and I'm going, here we go. It's a UFO. I'm finally, after all these years, I'm seeing a fucking UFO. It sounds like all the other UFOs I've had described to me.

I can't explain it because a plane doesn't move like that. It's disappearing behind clouds. It's getting bigger. It's going small. And what the fuck are those small things around it? So, took out my camera to take a photograph of it looked at the phone i said right that's pretty unremarkable just looks like a star but in reality

it was ridiculous and then i remembered i have this app on my phone and the app is called night sky and what night sky does is it's good crack actually the night sky app you point it up at the sky and it kind of uses augmented reality and it shows you what all the stars are and it shows you everything that's up in the sky so when i pointed it at the ufo turns out that it was not an alien spacecraft it was a satellite specifically one called SL-14RB which isn't even a satellite

it's an old rocket body of a Soviet rocket from like the fucking 80s that's just floating around in space as space rubbish and then directly behind it there also happened to be a meteor shower happening at the same time so this you know lump of rocket body which i assume is about the size of a bus is floating up there in space on the stratosphere, I assume you'd call it, the stratosphere, and it was moving pretty fast,

so that means it was close enough to the Earth, you know, it was up there. So basically what's happening is this bus-sized piece of rocket rubbish is spinning. Every time it spins, it happened to perfectly reflect a lump of the sun's light which is the reason why i thought it was growing big and disappearing growing big and disappearing it was just a perfect reflection pointing directly at me from thousands of miles

away and then the smaller lights around it were a meteor shower so it was two ridiculous coincidences happening at once which presented to me as most definitely a fucking alien spacecraft and it was just amazing that i could reach into my pocket and pull out this app and it was able to tell me not that's a satellite not they're meteors and yeah i just thought i'd share that with you you dirty pricks it was great um and i didn't need to scare the fuck out of myself tinfoil hatting you know if i didn't have this app i'd just i'd be right now on the podcast, Alex Jones, saying, lads, I fucking saw the aliens. That's what would happen in this podcast, because I'd have no other explanation.

Because it was too bizarre. But it was a Soviet rocket body with several meteors around it. And how class is that, that a piece of technology in my pocket today in fucking 2018 was able to give me that answer so quickly you know a soviet rocket went up during the cold war like there's another app i like called flight radar is it called flight radar flight radar 24 this is not a sponsored podcast i'm not pretending I saw a UFO because I'm getting paid by Night Sky no, or Flightradar

they're just apps I use Flightradar is again you just point it up at the sky and it will tell you what planes are in the sky and you can click on the plane and it tells you where it's going, where it's coming from, it tells you its speed, amazing so if I'm in bed and can't sleep and I hear a And you can click on the plane. And it tells you where it's going. Where's it coming from. It tells you it's speed.

Amazing. So if I'm in bed. And can't sleep. And I hear a jet. Far up in the air. I just point my app at the ceiling. And it tells me. What plane is flying above.

Now I enjoy it. Even though that sounds. Painfully lonely. But I enjoy doing that shit so this week's podcast it is a live podcast now I know what you're thinking blind

by two live podcasts in a month yes the reason being the first live podcast was with david mcwilliams which he loved by the way because the audio fidelity was fantastic it didn't feel like a live podcast it felt like a conversation so this one is a conversation with the author and screenwriter roddy dial and the reason i've got two podcasts in a month is Dave McWilliams has got his book out.

Roddy Dial has got his film Rosie out in cinemas right now. Go and see Rosie. It's about the housing and homeless crisis in Ireland told through a woman called Rosie who's living in emergency accommodation it's powerful it's beautiful go and see it so in order for Roddy and David McWilliams to come and do a live podcast for me I agreed to them I said look come and do the live podcast have a chat it'll be good

crack I promise you I will put out your podcasts as Wednesday podcasts so that ye can advertise your shit. So that's what this week's podcast is. It's a conversation with Roddy Doyle. And it's good crack. And what I will say to you as well, just a gentle, a gentle heads up that it's a lot of crack it's good crack but we do speak about issues of consent in the film the snapper and i just think it's a good idea to give you a heads up when something like that is being spoken about because not everyone wants to listen to that and if you don't go to an earlier podcast because we're at our year year of podcast there's 55

podcasts you can listen to um so we'll have i think we'll have an ocarina pause before i go into the live podcast which is recorded in beautiful fidelity and is intimate so here's the the ocarina pause so that we might throw in an old snaky. Unsolicited fucking horrible advert. For a Volvo or whatever. Whoever the fuck is advertising on the podcast. Depending on what you're into. Everyone gets different ads.

You mightn't get any. But here's the ocarina. It's a special tune just for Roddy Doyle Roddy Doyle On April 3rd You must be very careful Margaret It's a girl Witness the birth

Bad things will start to happen Evil things Of evil It's the girl. Witness the birth. Bad things will start to happen. Evil things of evil. It's all for you. No, no, don't. The first omen. I believe the girl is to be the mother. Mother of what? Is the most terrifying.

Six, six, six. It's the mark of the devil. Hey! Movie of the year. It's not real. It's not real. It's not real. Who said that?

The first omen. Only in theaters April 5th. Rock City, you're the best fans in the league, bar none. Tickets are on sale now for Fan Appreciation Night on Saturday, April 13th when the Toronto Rock hosts the Rochester Nighthawks at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton at 7.30pm. You can also lock in your playoff pack right now to guarantee the same seats for every postseason game

and you'll only pay as we play. Come along for the ride and punch your ticket to Rock City at torontorock.com Roddy Dial That was quite a Roddy Dial themed. Anything else? like the podcast

give it a review on iTunes recommend it to a friend and if you're feeling especially generous subscribe to the Patreon become a patron of the podcast and if you would like to

patreon.com forward slash the blind boy podcast and you can give me the equivalent of one pint a month or one cup of coffee a month some people like to do that other people don't completely up to you it is a system based on fairness if you'd like to listen for free, you can. If you'd like to become a patron, you can also do that. I appreciate it when you do. But I also understand if you don't. Right.

Live podcast. Vicar Street. Raddy Dial. Actually, fuck it. There you go again. Yeah, before I go. I'm doing more live podcasts. 8th and 9th of November.

In Vicar Street. There will be two more live podcasts. There's only a few tickets left for them. But there are tickets left. My guest. On the. 8th I believe. Is Emma De Beery.

Haven't chosen a guest yet. For the 9th. A lot of people asking me, please put out the podcast that you recently recorded in Ulster Hall with Bernadette Devlin. I will be putting that out, don't you worry. It's just, like I said, I have agreed with McWilliams and Raddy Doyle

that I would put out their podcasts this month. Bernadette will probably come next month if not December and then I'm doing a podcast in Killarney in December, I don't know the fucking date but down in Killarney in the eye neck in Killarney sometime in December

there is a blind buy live podcast and I'm unsure who my guest will be. But if you're in Killarney, come along to that, we'll have a bit of crack. Here is the live podcast with Raddy Doyle, recorded on Vicar Street, a couple of weeks ago. It's enjoyable.

Now, Raddy, you're most famous for writing the film Pulp Fiction. No, Raddy's a screenwriter and an author. You're just after releasing a film which I had the pleasure of seeing.

It's your first film in 17 years. 18. 18 years. Yep. By the name of fucking Rosie. No, just Rosie. Just Rosie.

And Rosie, tell us what Rosie is about. It's just a little more of a day in this woman's life. She is in a car with her four children and she's trying to find somewhere to spend the night. And she has a list of hotel numbers and a lot of the action is in the car, and she's phoning hotel after hotel after hotel. She has to try and, you know, look after the kids.

So it's a romantic comedy, really. And the strange thing about it, it was inspired by a woman I heard on the radio, Morning Ireland, one morning. And the strange thing was, and it was inspired by a woman I heard on the radio, Morning Ireland one morning. And the strange thing was, and the arresting thing was, that the woman talking said that her partner couldn't help her because he was at work. And I thought that was amazing, really, that it was just a perfectly ordinary working-class family

doing what they're supposed to do, you know, rearing children, working, loving each other and they just know where to live. So that's what the story's about. It's out next week, by the way. Next week, and is that in loads of cinemas? Hope so. But what it tells the story of

is it's not just Rosie's story. That's a lot of people in Ireland at the moment. It's homeless people who are living in hotels. Yeah, but there's 3,500 or more children. So you can kind of work it out. 3,500 homeless children. So you can kind of work out how many families that would involve.

And we tend to see lone homeless people on the streets. Usually men, but women as well. We don't see the families on the streets. So that's one of the things that interested me about it. But, yeah, but it is what, you know, as a writer, as a storyteller, it was really important for me that it's about one woman. It's not about a composite of people. It's not a statistic.

And I was hoping that, you know, the acting, you've seen it yourself, the acting is absolutely brilliant. Phenomenal, yeah. That it. And I was hoping that, you know, the acting, you've seen it yourself, the acting is absolutely brilliant. Phenomenal, yeah. That it would put a face on statistics, you know? And that the children in the back of the car, they're extraordinary, those little kids. They're really, really extraordinary. And that would put, again, a face on the three and a half thousand children. You put three and a half thousand children in one place, that's a lot of children. What I loved about it is it had a kind of

a Ken Loach level of realism. That's nice to hear. It's entertaining, but you've placed realism nearly ahead of the end. Even the narrative itself, there's no spoiler warnings as such. Nothing particularly mad happens at the end. But that's the beauty of it. There's no spoiler warnings as such, like nothing particularly mad happens at the end, but that's

the beauty of it. There's no real payoff at the end. No. Because that's real life, like what Ken Loach would do. Yeah. Again, because so much of it takes place in the car, the camera is bang up against them as well. You know, the camera really is squeezed up against them.

During the filming, the director, the sound man and the camera man were in the boot of the car. They were let out now and again. What year did you start writing that screenplay? Two years ago, almost literally two years ago. And when you began that two years ago, did you think by the time this comes out,

things would have changed? I thought maybe yeah it wouldn't be as urgent as it was and uh because it's and it's actually the statistics are worse than they were so they're worse and yeah the other thing i noticed too is is when this was happening during the recession there was a part of us going this is terrible but it will improve now that we're being told the recession is gone and we're back in some type of boom, and it's still happening,

there's now a more palatable anger on the streets because it's like, I thought this was going to fucking end as soon as... It's beginning to grow, I think, yeah. I don't think we're in a boom, actually. I don't think it's the same as the last one at all. I don't think the wealth is trickling down. Our expectations are quite low.

Like, the recession was so bad. Like, I consider it... I started noticing recently in Limerick, in the past six months, people buying breakfast in cafes and going, wow, look at this, it's like Beverly Hills. Yeah.

Seriously. And then realised how low my fucking expectations were. Like, that's normal. People should be allowed to go into a cafe and buy... It's the most important meal of the day. Yeah, but the idea that someone would have the spare change to decide I'm going to spend eight quid on a fry-up. Yeah, no, it's great. It is.

I think that really is... It's not luxury as such, but I think my definition of culture would be just a Eight quid on a fly-up. I think that really is the... It's not luxury as such, but I think my definition of culture would be just a few quid in your pocket. Really, by a few quid, I mean, you know, being lifted, the anxiety of wondering where you're going to pay for things is gone. And I don't think that's the case with a lot of people still. No.

And I think it's an extraordinary thing, when you look at if if we had a map of dublin and if i got a pencil and shaded in all the council housing the estates what we're called corporation houses and we started shading in dublin and all those vast estates around dublin many of you know the people in the audience i'm sure a lot of them grew up in those estates there wouldn't be an awful lot of dublin left because even in the audience, I'm sure a lot of them grew up in those estates. There wouldn't be an awful lot of Dublin left. Because even in the dark, conservative, awful times that we were supposed to have lived in, in the 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s, the state took responsibility for the housing of its people. And now it seems to be that that isn't the case.

That notion of social housing, I find the whole phrase insulting. And the idea that working class people shouldn't live in close proximity to each other, that somehow or other they are a bad influence on each other and that all these estates were a bad idea. Well that's what, Radiker came out last week and said something which was pretty fucking snide. He spoke about the housing protesters, the take back the city people, and he said what they want is a social divide. They're looking for more social housing,

and Radiker turned that on its head and said, ye want social divide, ye want poorer people to live over there, which I thought was particularly nasty. It's like, well, what do you want, Leo, than living in fucking cars, you prick? Yeah. Yeah, that's well put, actually. Yeah.

Yeah. It's, you know, it's public housing. Get the state, build the houses, get people to pay rent that they can afford. And when they can afford more, let them move on and somebody else can take the house, have a pool of houses. It seems to me, and I'm not a politician and I'm not an economist,

but it's as if ideologically the state, the current government, ideologically they don't want to interfere with the market. But Viradkar, he's a Tory in the traditional way. And when he was running for leader of Fine Gael, that phrase he used, I represent people who get up early in the day. He wasn't talking people on minimum wage

on the six o'clock bus going into town. And I found that, again, and your man, the candidate for the presidency, Gavin Duffy, talking, I work in the real world. And I was listening to the radio and I said, fuck you. And that

middle class notion that somehow or other they have a monopoly on the real world and real work and hard work. I mean, I write fiction for a living. I make up stories. But I work in the real world. You know, it's that prick coming out and saying that. And that means he's qualified to look after us during the Brexit negotiations, by the way.

Good God. What's going on with these these presidential candidates like like isn't it a bit mad they're not as mad as the last gang seven years ago

it was really good but like I get Michael D but like yeah like where what is it about middle aged men

on the telly who decide it's the new like Ferraris aren't popular anymore so you just run for the presidency after fucking midlife crisis like what the fucky who decide it's the new like Ferraris aren't popular anymore so you just run for the presidency after fucking

midlife crisis like what the fuck like who the fuck is Sean Gatterer like seriously like you know what I mean not everyone

watches Dragons Den I thought he was a Mussolini lookalike what's going to like I want to think that possibly they know

they're going to lose and then off the back of it will somehow try and sell some business venture or something. That's what Kevin Sharkey did, really, wasn't he? He was flogging his new exhibition or something. Do you think that was his game plan? I don't know. I really don't know.

He's a bit of a daft man, isn't he? That Kevin Sharkey technique was a bit fucking... And he didn't understand what a president was. Making these mad sweeping... He thought he'd be able to fucking go to the Constitution and write new things into it and it'd be grand. You mentioned there, right, the story of Rosie.

Like, I know people in Limerick that live in hotels, live in their cars, right? And you managed to truly nail the experience. Like, beyond hearing a woman on the radio in their cars, right? And you managed to truly nail the experience. Like, beyond hearing a woman on the radio and trying to put yourself in her shoes, did you do any, like, we'd say socially engaged research? No.

Work with groups? No, I fell back on my own experience. My children are adults now, but it's like when they were kids and you'd be under pressure, get them into the car, get one of them one place, another of them another place, another of the other place, make sure they're fed, try to avoid the traffic at a certain junction, all this sort of stuff, usual mundane stuff. And then you just put it through a blender. And that's what I did, really.

And so I found it quite easy to imagine her going through that and actually it's a bit like you know when you have a baby and the baby's crying or whatever and you know the baby's bottle is right behind you and you go for the baby's bottle and it's not there

and it's not there and it's not there and if you just multiply that by 100 and keep on going like that the expected things just aren't there and i've been in enough really awful hotel rooms in my life you know touring places that imagining imagine fucking living here you know and people think the idea of a hotel i mean ideally it is like it's a bit of a luxury to escape from normal life and to move into a hotel but the reality is you're biting hot dogs

if you're in the same hotel room even if it's a nice one for three weeks or something like that it becomes a bit hellish you know sure I fucking

this isn't a comparable experience like but when I was doing when Horse Outside came out RTE put me into a hotel for like three weeks

and I nearly turned into Howard Hughes I did. I was drying my jocks out in the hallway and I was hanging a pint of milk out the window by a bit of twine. Because there was no fridge or jocks washing

facilities, you know? That's a very privileged approach to go at the unfortunate people who are homeless. When I had a number one single, lads, let me tell you I understood. Hardship in a hotel. They had to sneak my cocaine in underneath the door.

You've won a Booker Prize, you cunt. I have yeah yeah yeah which is and you haven't you cunt I have not and I never will and I never fucking will

but uh the Booker Prize is like probably the best it's up there with the nobel prize it's it's i like to think so it in it is basically like that's it once you get that you're sorted what i do with the questions as well i get the questions from twitter and someone wanted to know how did you won the booker prize for patty clark and you've been nominated you were nominated as

well a second for the fan yeah how did how did winning the booker impact your life and your work it didn't impact on the work at all i'd finished uh i was working on the next book which is called the woman who walked into doors and i just went back to work on that. It impacted slightly, well, actually quite a lot at first. It was more like keeping the door closed. I suddenly became, or people thought I was public property for a while and I wasn't, but it took a bit. The most absurd one was the coming up toward, I won it in 1993 and towards the end of the year, there was an idea, somebody had the idea that there was an Irish racehorse, I can't remember, who'd won a big Melbourne Gold Cup. Shergar.

No. No, it wasn't Shergar. That's the only horse I know. Yeah, you probably ate him. But, no, it was another horse, I can't remember the name, and there was somebody else had won something, and the idea was that they'd get myself, the and there was somebody else had won something and the idea was that they'd get myself

the horse and somebody else and photograph us because we'd all brought glory to Ireland and I I hadn't won

the Booker Prize for Ireland I just happened to be Irish and there was all sorts of daft things about I'd open a supermarket and stuff like that and

yeah so I mean I live very quietly and I a supermarket and stuff like that and yeah so I mean I live very quietly and I wanted to keep it like that so for about a year I was making decisions that ordinarily I would never have had to make and I said the word no more times yeah in that year than I have ever said did you get good at saying the word no? Really good. Yeah. Yeah, I could stretch it to about seven syllables. Because that's really tough. Saying no, it can be tough. Yeah, but it can be quite enjoyable sometimes too. See, there you go now.

No, that's a skill I had to learn. One of the things they say to build your self-esteem is to learn how to say no without apologising first. To simply be able to say, no, I'm not into that. No, I haven't got that far yet. I always apologise. Oh, you have to apologise afterwards.

So you're like, no, I won't take a photograph with the horse, but if you've got a goat, maybe. Yeah, yeah. The goat that won the Melbourne Gold. No, I usually write no and then semicolon sorry. But I'm going to stop saying sorry now

if it's to help build my self esteem there you go one person asked actually there's when the interval happens right I don't have any

time keeping mechanism up here can someone at the desk flash a light at me or a phone or something and say that's when the interval happens is that possible

it's Vicar Street like there you go i'm thinking back in smaller venues they've got fucking lights in here perfect um someone wants to know general advice uh your day-to-day approach before you could write for a living like when you had another job you were a teacher it was yeah like what helped you as regard like finding the time and the discipline to be doing that, you know? When you had, and as well like... June, July and August.

Of course. Holy days of obligation. Weekends. Midterm breaks. All the hours after four o'clock. You know, it's actually quite easy. If you want to do it, you do it, you know. I think I've met more people over the years who say,

I'd love to write, but I don't have time. And they do. If you really want to do it, you do. The best I got was one that was actually quite harrowing the the story itself somebody wrote to me and telling me a really really harrowing story terrible really terrible story and wanted me to ghost write it for them and the last sentence in it was I'd write it myself but I don't have the time as far as I obviously do. Yeah. But, yeah, no, if you... You know, teaching,

there's a lot of writers started off with teaching. But in Ireland, it's particularly brilliant because you actually get a quarter of the year off. But even with... We'll say...

Because I remember, I can't remember who the writer was but I was reading... Stephen King. He was doing a bit of... He's got a lovely book about writing. And he was talking a bit of he's got a lovely book about writing and he was talking about

he did have the time off but whatever about physical time the mental drain of teaching and living in an intellectual space while he's teaching

and somebody there owns a mental drain Stephen King Stephen King's sitting at the back. He came along. But the mental drain of...

Because teaching is an intellectual... Not only intellectual, it's a physical job. It's a demanding job. To be able to actually go, all right, I've done that all day. Now I'm going to go into my own head. Were you able to do that? I was.

I was a teacher for 14 years. And most of those years, I really loved it. it i really enjoyed myself i had a great time was it secondary school it was secondary school in kilbaric uh yeah okay somebody from monaghan just cheered there yeah so i really really enjoyed it it could be tiring Fridays you know there was one Friday I had um a bunch of Lou Jazz coming in after PE and I had them for an hour and 20 minutes and they were all you know they didn't want to do English and then followed the last class of the day they'd just been in religion and they'd been watching some video of Jesus of Nazareth. You know, the 20th. I love the Jesus of Nazareth, in case we got mixed up with the other one. Why do they say that?

Robert Powell played Jesus. Yeah. Oh, it's from the 1980s. Oh, I know that one. That was the last class of the day, and I'd be knackered after that Friday, so I wouldn't do much work on Fridays, but I'd be ground on Saturday.

So, no, I didn't find it a problem. I really enjoyed the job, you know, and in a way it fed me. You know, the first book I wrote, The Commitments, is a big gang of people together. And I think, in a way, from listening to big gangs of kids all day, I was able to do it, you know.

I was able to visualise it, and I was able to decide, it doesn't really matter who wrote, who says that line I'll just go on to the next line and, you know, so I think actually teaching helped Were you like consciously listening to the dialogue of young people?

It was getting into your unconscious? No, I mean, I've read that I was, I read once that I started listening to people at the age of 21 when I started teaching. But you never said that out loud? No, I'd been listening to people since I was a baby. Yeah. You know, I've never actually heard a conversation that I would say, that's going to go into something.

I've heard lines, and a couple of years later, I'd remember a line. But I don't think I've ever written, say, a page and a half to get to a line that I thought was. But I don't think I've ever written, say, a page and a half to get to a line that I thought was funny. I don't think I've ever done that. One thing that sticks out with your writing, even without even reading it and looking at the page, the amount of dialogue you use. You're very heavy on dialogue.

Yeah, you fill a page really quickly if you write dialogue. Yeah, what's your thinking behind that? Because genuinely, I was looking back over it today going fucking hell i must i must up the dialogue this this is a well i used to measure the working day three three pages so if you have a belt of dialogue that's nothing yeah working the working day is over by a quarter to ten no i just um with the commitments there had to be a lot of characters talking yeah you know you could put a big bunch of people and ireland Ireland, Dublin being Dublin, silence isn't an option.

So they always talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. And I integrated that in the lyrics. And that was then, you know, going on to the next book without even thinking about it. I had my style. I'd invented my style. I'd made my rules. So it's a more...

The Snapper was the second book, and it was more intimate. But again... Thank you very much, again, father talking to the daughter, it's all people talking. And then later on, I wrote a monologue, you know, I started writing in the first person,

and that's a form of talking, you know, so the challenge is to try and, you know, break the rules in some ways, and also to make, to sustain a story for, you know break the rules in some ways and also to make, to sustain a story for you know 90,000 words where it just seems to be a conversation you know so it's just one of the

stylistic things I came about as I was writing, I really like dialogue, I like... Do you find it lends you to, because you do a lot of screenwriting too, do you find that that lends you towards screenwriting? Screenwriting, no, it's more about structure, really. It's more about scenes. It's more like, it's not really literature as such.

It's more about instructions to directors, instructions to actors. And do you know the writer, Enda Walsh? Yeah. You know, brilliant. And his characters talk nonstop. And then he wrote this screenplay for Hunger about the hunger strikers. And there's no fucking dialogue in there.

For long, long stretches, nobody says anything. And I thought, there's a man who knows how to write a screenplay because he wasn't filling the pages with people talking about being hungry. I found a lot of that as well was... Oh, there we go. I'm going to finish this pint, and then ye can have a pint. That's very clever.

But I thought a lot of that was the director, Steve McQueen. Ye familiar with Steve McQueen? Amazing. But what I love about Steve, Steve McQueen comes from a fine art background. He would have started off putting stuff in galleries. Like Steve McQueen, he's got an Oscar and he's got a Turner Prize.

Like that is ridiculous. But with Hunger in particular, I found that it was like maybe Steve McQueen and Ender Walsh sat down and Steve McQueen was like, let's do this with just the body because Hunger is like Jesus that film is

yes it's about the hunger strikes but it's also just about the human body being stretched and tortured you know what I mean? and back to teaching, I used to teach Enda he was in my very first class so that might explain why I like teaching. Very good.

Yeah. Fucking hell. Yeah. So we leave you be for about 15 minutes and you can have a gentle pint. Does that sound all right? We were talking backstage there, Roddy, about

I was asking you about your daily process of writing and you were talking as well about you like to listen to music when you're writing. I do. So what's the shtick with that? Well, it fills the room for a start. When I started writing full time I used to be a teacher and I'd write in the interval, so to speak, and then suddenly I had all day, every day to write.

Were you writing in school? No, not in school, but sometimes. But very rarely, very rarely. But now, yeah, sometimes if I was under pressure... Do you find that because it was a lump of dialogue maybe or something that it was easier? Where, in school? Yeah.

No, I was writing scripts and film scripts when I was still teaching, and sometimes I'd bring in a bit of work and maybe do it at lunchtime, but not very often. But anyway, when I gave up teaching, I suddenly found myself by myself for the first time with no company whatsoever, no voices to entertain me or to distract me and it was a long long day you know I was very happy but it was a long long day and I

started listening to music and it was too distracting then you know you can't listen to the Rolling Stones and work at the same time it's just not an option and then I started listening to classical music and a lot of the standard classical music just seemed too familiar because it was all in ads. Yeah. You know, so you're not listening to the music, you're actually, you know,

encountering an ad without the pictures and so I began to look for music that I could play and I ended up now, I've written, I'm on my 12th novel ended up now, I've written I'm on my 12th novel at this stage and I've written more than 20 books and with the novels particularly I tried to find

I have no idea why people clap there Because you've written 20 fucking books, that's unreal Okay, Jesus. So in the last few years, I've murdered 20 babies. It's easy. So I tried to find a different type of music for each book. And at the moment, the music I'm listening to is a wild... It's a guy called Tim Hecker. I've no idea what he looks like. He sounds like an accountant from Tireless.

He may well be. He may well be. I have no idea what... There is a guitar in this new record of his, but I've no idea what he does. I went to see another musician i listened to a lot when i'm working a fellow called william basinski and he was playing in belfast and out of curiosity i wanted to see i went up to belfast to see him

and it's him and two laptops basically which he calls them my girls and it was just and he he's not a young lad he's the same age as myself and he just stood behind the laptops and most of the people in the room walked out and I thought well this is great this is brilliant because I now have a visual idea of what he does and what he does is he flutes around with laptops but the music that he produces is brilliant and I think I go for a lot of that I find when I go and a lot of the. I find when I look at the music, I look for it first on Spotify and it's that type of stuff that less than a thousand people in the world listen to.

It's part snobbery, I think. I'm listening to music that nobody else has ever heard and they're not bright enough to appreciate it. The opener of, like the opening paragraphs in The Commitments are about that. It's one of the lads is just, he's heard this shit.

What was it? Not Depeche Mode. Was it Frankie Goes to Hollywood? It's like he heard Frankie Goes to Hollywood first and he knew they were shit before everyone else knew they were shit. Yeah, yeah. Like, is there a bit of you in that?

Were you a bit of a music hipster growing up? Yeah, and to my shame now, stuff I dismissed, we used to dismiss music as commercial. Yeah. Like, the poor fuckers made a living. We just hated them. And I'll admit now that Tears for Fears

are actually really good. Yeah. But just sneered at them when they were in their heyday, when they were young. You know, I think they're probably a bit younger than me, but, you know, just sneered at them. And actually, their music is just brilliant. It's fantastic.

Like, one thing I noticed recently, if you listen to the start of Everybody Rules The World, Unreal song, it's the same as the start of fucking Michael Jackson, The Way You Make Me Feel. And it is, it's the exact same. Listen to the two of them. Which came first? I thought

that they were copying Michael Jackson. Turns out Quincy Jones was in a studio next to Tears for Fears, and he nicked it off Tears for Fears. But black musicians are always robbing white musicians. Yeah, that's a tradition that's the whole story read the story of the blues it's all these black guys all these white slaves in the farce in the deep south

did you were you into the blues at any point sorry did you get into the blues oh i love the blues i play the blues a lot yeah what type of stuff were you into the blues at any point? Sorry, I didn't hear you. Did you get into the blues? Oh, I loved the blues. I played the blues a lot, yeah. What type of stuff were you into when you were young for that? Oh. Actually, yeah, here's a question. B.B. King more than anybody else. Growing up in Dublin, you would have been a teenager when?

The 70s, 80s? I was a teenager in the 70s. So with discerning tastes in music, how the fuck did you get your hands on stuff that was rare? I didn't. I don't think I did. I don't know. There were loads of record shops. It was records, you know, it was vinyl.

But how would you find something? Well, I'll tell you, there was a guy called George Murray and he had a shop on Grafton Street. Just as an example. I can't remember, there was another fella who worked with him. A milkman by day and a record lover by every other aspect of his life.

We'd go in, we were in school, we'd go in most weekends and we'd go up into the shop and you could stay all day listening to music. They weren't pushed if you brought something. And how would that work? Would there be a turntable and you could say can I get a listen? They'd play it but this guy, Derek his name was

and it was one day Derek said you've got to listen to this guy and it was Bruce Springsteen and it was the Wildly Innocent and the E Street Shuffle, it was before he became it and he put it on and it's hard to imagine hearing that for the first time ever we were 15 or 16.

And, you know, so much of those songs now are part of our cultural heritage almost. But when you hear it the first time, it was just extraordinary. And that wasn't all that unusual. You'd hear, you know, there was the sound seller, Pat... I can't remember his surname, the sound seller there on Nassau Street. And there were a lot of good record shops where they would play music. And again, ideally, they'd like you to buy it,

but they didn't mind if a gang of young fellas came in and just were listening, you know? It would end up in a sale someday, probably, yeah. Eventually, if you avoided it eventually, you'd get it for less than a quid. And then the tapes came in. Because I had older brothers, and they said they used to, in Limerick,

and then what would happen is you'd go in the daytime, you'd buy it for less than a quid. And then the tapes came in. Because I had older brothers and they said they used to, in Limerick, and then what would happen is you'd go in the daytime, you'd buy an LP, you'd go home and put it onto a cassette, then you'd run back to the shop by the end of the day and say,

my sister bought me the same one, it's my birthday, can I, and that ruined that culture. How often can you do that though? You put on wigs. How many sisters? Yeah.

And you have a gang of sisters of 12 sisters yeah like i mean i know i'm always like van morrison said that um the way that he was able to hear like decent blues is that wherever he was living up the north was near a u.s army base and they used to play you uh radio just for the for the black soldiers and he used to be able to tune in and hear like Robert Johnson or fucking Sun House, BB King, Muddy Waters, things like that. Do you know the song, O.E.M. saw an early song, Radio Free Europe?

Yes. Well, I remember listening to Radio Free Europe. Was that the one that was on a boat? No, it was actually, you know, they were broadcasting, I think in part, as a propaganda exercise across the Iron Curtain so that people on the other side of the Iron Curtain could hear good music. They were trying to give them a blast of

Western culture. Yeah, yeah. And it was brilliant. It was absolutely brilliant. Listen to the Beatles and buy a can of Coke. Yeah, in the 70s. I'm guessing they were trying to topple communism with fucking Western music, yeah. But, you know, it's probably the best way to go about it. And the pirate stations

was another thing. Radio Caroline. You couldn't often get a good reception but one of my sisters lived in the hague in the 70s and i went to this was 1977 and uh you know the hague was much nearer to where the boat radio caroline was and the songs again like it was the Pistols it was Debbie Harry and Blondie again Blondie became part of the soundtrack of the world but before that when you hear it the first time it's just amazing really

so yeah there was a lot of stuff in the air a lot of variety in the air and it's a bit like films, you go to a film, you'd see it once and if you really liked it you might go again but that was the end of it. Because we didn't have videotapes or anything like that. So you just saw the thing.

And that was the once. And of course, that gave it so much more emotional and cultural value. Because it's like a rare jewel. It was different to an extent. Because now I know that kids can recite an entire film off by heart. And that's a different sort of affection for a film. But if think of the one one flew over the cuckoo's nest which i would have seen when maybe when i was 18 and i think i've seen it since but my recollection of it is so vivid that i don't think i really need to see it but i didn't see it on video i went to it and the only other option was to go to it again yeah you know what i mean it wasn't it was to be on Netflix. And then you have to battle, am I going to pay

for a ticket to see it again or see something else? Because it's interesting, one thing that's kind of disappeared from culture is catchphrases. Like, if you think back to we'd say the great sketch comedy shows of the 90s, we'd say, even fucking Father Tate. People would watch Father Tate

or they would watch The Fast Show or something like that on TV. Go to the pub and you'd have some annoying prick there roaring catchphrases from the television. You're talking about my past friends down there. That was a hugely popular

form of discourse. That's gone. If you try and do a catchphrase from something you saw on TV now, they'd think you're mad because what's the point? You can go onto YouTube and watch it over and over again. There was another aspect of it as well. If you watch telly, it was in the knowledge that everybody was watching it at the exact same time.

You couldn't queue up episodes of a series and watch them all at the same time. It was on once a week. If you didn't see it, you missed it. And that was it. You didn't have an option. You'd never see it again. And so if you were watching, say, as I was when I was in school, Fawlty Towers, everybody would watch it at the same time

and come in the next day and it was then, don't mention the war. Yeah. And then it was death for the rest of our lives. Don't mention the war. And my father, you know, who watched that episode with me, you know, and somebody was coming in the door and he whispered in my ear, don't mention the war and my father you know who watched that episode with me you know and somebody was coming into tour and he whispered in me or don't mention the war so it became yeah so you're right catchphrases in that sense of uh but do you like i feel that

that's kind of it's devalued art in it like if you look at the value of a piece of art in relation to how rare it is that's how easily accessible everything is now it makes it like I get my kind of my ear horn off I'd go onto Spotify and it took a while for me to cop onto that one

I've never had one of them I'd go onto I grew up at the very end. I was young enough to remember when you couldn't download, right? So I got into David Bowie when I was about 14. And I remember the joy of having to save up 25 pounds for a fucking one David Bowie album

and having to wait another four months until I could get 25 pounds again and forcing myself to listen to that album and explore it. Now if I find a new artist, I just go onto Spotify and I can fart through their entire career in a half an hour.

There's no value to it anymore. It doesn't give me a buzz. I enjoy it, but it's not the same as having this one album and as well like even buying an album and going fuck it I'm after spending 25 quid on this I don't like it and then going I can't afford not to like this

yeah but seriously like some of my favourite albums of all time I hated them at the start and there's great value if you hear a piece of music, this is one thing I feel about a piece of music or a film. If you see something or hear something and you're genuinely indifferent to it, that means you don't like it. But if you see or hear

something and it pisses you off, chances are you love it. You're just not ready to accept that you love it yet. It's like they say like a good gig is like in the early days when we started gigging and no one knew who we were the audience were either cheering or throwing shit at us that's a good thing it's when the audience are at the bar with their back to you that's the bad thing it's indifference and you don't get like if i come across a new artist now on spotify and i hear them and i don't like it, I just move on. I can't go, no, you're living with this for two weeks.

Yeah. No, if I like a song, if I like an album, that's another thing. People don't really listen to albums in the same way. The album, the ideal album, should be about 40 minutes long. Or if it's not,

there should be a good reason why it isn't. But I wonder, you know, I bought Suede's new album. I can't imagine that was a barrel of laughs. No, but it's brilliant. Do you like it? Oh, brilliant. And musically, I mean, it's so well textured, and I'm

wondering, you know, because most people are going to listen to it for nothing. Is his name Brett Anderson? Is it Brett Anderson? It is, yeah. See, I can't trust a man who's called Brett Anderson. It sounds like. Is his name Brett Anderson? Is it Brett Anderson? It is, yeah. See, I can't trust a man who's called Brett Anderson. It sounds like he made his name up. Well, his parents made his name up. It's easily explained.

Really? Roddy, I read on Wikipedia that you became resentful of the success of the commitments not resentful because it was such a monster the film, I self publishedpublished the book. So nobody wanted it.

And then I self-published it with a friend of mine, John Sutton. And then four years later, it's the film. Brilliant. I co-wrote the script. Absolutely brilliant. Really happy with it. They did a great job. Alan Parker, great job.

But by then, I was working on my third novel. I knew the snapper was on the way because I'd written the script. And everybody just wanted to talk about the bloody commitments. And Dublin is full of these bores who were in a band. And they wanted to know, had I seen their band? Oh, God. And that inspired me to write that commitment. Man.

And I even mean. I swear to God, on Twitter, when I asked Twitter this evening, have you got questions for Roddy Doyle, some cunt comes in and says, my da is Georgie Burgess, and I want you to ask, does he know this man from this area,

and can you ask Roddy, is Georgie Burgess based on my da? I need a few more details. But it was so ridiculous. I didn't even bring it to you. I'll tell you what, we'll make the man's day, or it probably is life. Yeah, it's based on your father. I have no idea who he is.

But yeah, there was even a guy who kept at me. And I don't know, I was just unfortunate. I turned a corner and there he was. I don't think he was stalking me, I just think he was there. But I should have turned a different corner, maybe. But he kept insisting that it was based on his band.

No. No. And I asked, you know, when was your band playing? 1996. I said, well, the film came out in 1991. And it didn't make any difference. He still seemed to think that it was about his band.

Which probably is a compliment to the quality of the work. I don't know. Another person said, I spoke to a septuagenarian blues singer while I was having a cigarette outside a dive blues bar in Chicago a couple of years ago.

As soon as he heard my Dublin accent, lit up and said, the commitments, Wilson Pickett. Is Roddy ever surprised by the reach of his stories given their setting?

Yeah. Yeah. The Commitments has been translated into Hebrew. I have a copy of it at home. And there's nothing in it that indicates that it's The Commitments by Roddy Doyle. You know, there's no English. It could be the Tel Aviv phone book.

Beautiful. But it is... But isn't Hebrew only spoken by mad Orthodox Jews in Israel? Yeah, but I love The Commitments. What's Roddy's version of events with Roy Keane's autobiography, and what's the story with the two of them now? I don't even... I know nothing about sport. I don't even know the context of this.

Well, yeah, yeah, I co-wrote a book with Roy four years ago. It was absolutely... What was that process like, sir? Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Were you sitting down with Roy Keane? Yep, sir? Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Were you sitting down with Ray Keane? Yep, once a week. I can't write, I'm going to jump over a gate.

I'm not going there. It was a brilliant experience. He was absolutely brilliant. That answer tells me that Ray Keane is litigious. No. Genuinely, absolutely brilliant experience. Great guy. Never... Fantastic fella to work with.

Fantastic fella to be in his company. He's sharp. He's witty. He's great crack. He's really, really nice. I couldn't say a negative word about him. I'm sure you couldn't. The book experience.

Do you not think he looks like the premier of Iran? No. Have you ever seen the premier of Iran? Have you ever seen him? The fucking image of Ray Keane, man. I can't. He could be threatening us with nuclear war and I just hear it in a Cork accent. We'll move on.

I'm getting nowhere. I was being honest there. I was being honest. One of the things that was asked most on Twitter this evening, right? And this, I'm going to read this out as, in honor of Roddy Doyle, I'm going to read this out as the dialogue as it happened on Twitter. Because this question was asked quite a bit,

and then someone took umbrage to it and this beautiful piece of dialogue emerged and I was going, this is like reading Roddy Dial. So, where is it now? So, the conversation takes place between a woman called Elaine

and a man called Dicey. So, Elaine says, how does Roddy feel about the snapper always being seen as this hilarious story when the undertone of it is quite serious?

Burgess raping Sharon and being a weirdo in general. So then Dicey came in. Sharon came on to Burgess. Willingly, willingly had sex with him, and you're calling that rape? Then Elaine comes back.

Sharon didn't know who he was. She was so drunk. Burgess was sober. Not consensual. He took advantage of her. Dicey. Bullshit! And even if Burgess was sober,

which I highly doubt, as everyone else in that scene was drunk, it was completely consensual. No doubt she would not have done it if she was sober. But that does not constitute rape. It's called taking responsibility for your own actions. Elaine, alright right, accompanied by an image of a woman leaving the room. And then it just trailed off into a series of abusive comments from Dicey

because she wouldn't answer. Your Dublin accent is spot on there, by the way. I'm not even chancing the Dublin accent. Luckily, that wasn't a question, so I don't have to answer it. No, a question

a lot of people wanted to talk about some of the themes in the snapper and how they would be viewed today and feeling that like what is that like I re-looked at that, after that conversation I went and I re-looked at the scene

now I'm talking about the film not the book I was trying to wonder is it consensual or not? And even if it wasn't, there was a hell of a lot of power. Like Georgie, first off she was piss drunk and all she says is a man. So she's like any man.

But then Burgess comes over, he's clearly, he's not as drunk as she is. No, he is drunk, but he's not as drunk. He's drunk, but her bottle falls on the ground and then when he's riding her, she says, is that you squeaking or the car? And I'm left with it, not knowing, was this

consensual? Was it just something she regretted? And, like, what's your thinking at the time? Well, in the book, in the book, she wondered, was it rape? And she felt that it would have been a comfort somehow if it had been rape.

But she can't actually conclude that it was rape. It was just awful. And she was really drunk. He was drunk, not as drunk. It's a really difficult one because that scene, I wasn't there when it was shot. I was still a teacher when it was shot, but they shot the scene from different angles.

And you know, it's incredible how I saw them all then in various rough cuts, and it's amazing how the position of the camera can tell the story. So when the camera for example was on a crane above them i mean it was a scene that would not you couldn't have in a comedy of

any sort but we didn't want that either because it takes away they you know because those question marks are part of the story because part of of her triumph, really, in forcing the neighbourhood and her family to accept her story, is that she's getting away from that fact as well. So if you had the camera on high, looking down at him on top of her, it robs the story, in a way, of a lot of question marks.

Because a lot of the camera, a lot of it is side profile yes which gives them equality to an extent if it was below then he would have the power yeah yeah um but are you saying that like it was because this is the difference between between culture then and culture now well back then people were comfortable with kind of ambiguity. Today people want answers. Well, it's like a lot of people want... I mean, sometimes a good story, it's a bit like a shirt, un-ironed. I mean, it looks better.

A good story is a bit... All right, thanks very much, lads, I'll leave it at that. A good story is like a shirt. Sometimes a shirt looks better when it's not ironed, but people want to iron the bloody thing all the time. They want all the time they want all the little creases out of the way they don't they want clear yes no answers and you know the reality is in human life there aren't all that many generally even i you know when we're talking

about consent and rape and the rest of it i'm as sensitive as everybody else when you write a piece of fiction where it's there it's all about words and it's choosing words and actually taking out words and trying to tell the story in a way that allows the story to continue yeah you know and if you decide because you would much rather as a human being and as a father and as a just as a human being, I would much rather the story were different. But if you're telling the story and you decide to change it or to make it a little bit clearer or a bit more clear-cut, you're going to wreck the story.

And that's the case with an awful lot of aspects of storytelling. That's the reality of it. And, you know, it's what we watch when we're watching television series it's what we read about we don't read about the happy stuff we don't watch the happy stuff if somebody says there's a great new series on netflix it's about a family that really likes each other and they do off there's 10 episodes and the soundtrack is really dull, but actually it grows on you. It's not going to be a hit. And, you know, when it comes to sexuality,

it's the trickiest area, really. But the question is, do you do it or don't you do it? In terms of the storytelling. What I think is powerful is, like, Jesus, we're, what, 18 years on from the fucking... When was that released, 1994? 1993. Right, I'm shit at maths.

How many years ago was that? 25. 25 years ago. Like, we're still having a conversation about that one scene. And just if I can get a hum from the audience, right, because you can kind of tell from a hum. Not yet, sir. Who in this audience

watches the snapper and feels that it was rape that's definitely not everyone there is going so that's the kind of that's the kind of vibe now I've never had an opinion expressed in that way before.

Man, it's 2018. That's how we do it now. There's no more referendums. You're just going home into a box. That was unintentionally sexual. All those box hummers there in Dublin, huh? Dirty fuckers. Good name for a band.

The box hummers, yeah. If we've any more questions about that, I'm going to be passing the mic around so we can get back to that one, all right? But, yeah, to finish, I'm getting the vibe that you're of the opinion that a piece of art, you're allowed to have not answer questions in the piece of art, leave it in the hands of the audience to interpret their own meaning. Absolutely, because the readers and the viewers

are an active part of the process. I mean, I'm a voracious reader. I read all the time and I don't want everything explained to me unless it's philosophy and that's often just opinion as well. I react to it, I disagree and it's the same with a piece of fiction, it's the same with the film. Are you a fan of The Wire? wire oh yeah yeah that's like David Simon like said like the most of the wire does not happen on screen it's all about what happens in the mind of the observer when they walk away from the wire mm-hmm you know yeah I just keep thinking of a piece of wire and there's a lovely scene in The Wire where... It's the men behind The Wire.

They're the ones... That's it. One of the police chiefs, like, it's four seasons in, and one of the police chiefs for one scene is just in a gay bar. That's it. They never address it beforehand,

never address it afterwards, and we just have to go, what the fuck does that mean? But the joy of it is is that everyone is now writing their own wire in their mind there was a daytime soap in america where a guy said he had to go upstairs to get his tennis racket and he did and he never came back and no one ever mentioned him again in the whole series what that's how they got rid of him. Really? Yeah. See, now that I like. Presumably he couldn't find it.

I'm just imagining he had a tennis racket and whatever it was about this tennis racket, he went up to the attic, swooshed it, the tennis racket managed to rip open a hole into a dimension, he fucked off into another dimension. Or Wimbledon, at least. Or maybe he became a famous tennis player. Pete Sampras.

You wrote a book called A Star Called Henry, which the film Star Trek was based upon. It's about a lad in the 1916 Ryzen who loves getting his hole. Yeah. There's a bit more to it than that, but yeah, that's a good summary. How is Colm Meaney?

How is Colm Meaney? I don't know. I'll make it up. He's great, thanks. I'd say he's a lovely man. He is, yeah. Yeah, there's a bang of gent off him. Yeah, no, he's great.

But listen, I love history. I adore history. And I was wondering with A Star Called Henry, like it's set in 1916. And your process seems to be very much

it's Roddy's head and you just do your own thing in your head. Did you at least go and read a history book oh rakes of them there's a whole pile of them at the back of the book did you not finish it no there's a whole list of books that's why I called

it it's about a lad in 1916 who does a lot of writing there's a whole list of the books I read or pretended to read yeah so but did you like that sounds different to your usual process like you got to well yeah because I mean sometimes the books were just photographs. Photographs are brilliant.

You know, they're very evocative. They can get you there. But, you know, it's still fiction. I still made it up. But, you know, books will get you closer. There was an amazing book, an oral history, by a man called Kevin Kearns called Tenement Life in Dublin. And all the people in the book, he had an old-fashioned, I met him,

and he had an old-fashioned tape recorder and went around and recorded the memories of these elderly people. And it would have been about maybe 40, 30 years ago. So probably they're all dead now. But there was one really, there was one woman talking about when she was a little girl lying in bed at night

and she'd hear a wooden leg outside, a man with a wooden leg walking home from the pub and I thought that's amazing so I gave a character a wooden leg and it became the wooden leg itself became almost a character in the in the story so reading fed the story so to speak and it was unusual because I hadn't read enough I I read an awful lot but not necessarily when I'm working or for work sometimes Sometimes, if it's unfamiliar, I kind of read just to fill my head with the world I'm working about. And that's what I did when I was writing that one. Is that the only piece you've written whereby it's from a time before you were born?

No, because Henry goes on then to America for another book. And then there's another one. So there were three books about a time before I was born, yeah. But you know And how do you find that process? Like how do you find like writing about Dublin except there's trends?

Well it's still Dublin. Do you know? And O'Connell Street was O'Connell Street. It was Sackville Street. Still familiar. You know, well the name changes but the place was still there. And, you know, the amazing thing is, at my age, when I was a kid, I used to go down to Wexford,

where my mother's relations were. I give up. It's only Wexford. And now it takes about an hour to get there, you know, depending on the traffic then it was a whole day's journey and also you know my and I bet it wasn't just a journey it was getting ditches and shit yeah yeah she lived in a house without electricity without running water and donkey and cart came and collected the milk in the morning when I was a child that was in the 1960s so it's not too it's not too hard for

me and I remember when I was a kid you know with my father walking through streets of Dublin and the tenements were still there they you know Sean O'Casey's tenements yeah big gaping doors and kids pouring out of these tenements and eventually they were emptied and people moved to council estates. But that's my memory. They're there. I saw them. You know? And so one of the few advantages of being relatively old compared to the audience or whatever is that you do bring these images with you.

So to an extent, yeah, I did a bit of research. But, you know, De Valera was the president when I was... Not a lot of whoops for old Dave. No. No. Clearly no one from Clare in the room. So De Valera was alive. You know, very much alive and a big force in the country when I was a kid.

And a lot of these men who were in 1916, these kind of old men with their coats and their black boots they were alive and well and running the country when I was a kid so yeah I had to do a bit of research but at the same time it felt like you know it didn't feel like history it makes it easier to humanize him like I mean Dave Dave for us is like he's not a real human he's a thing same with with Michael Collins, you know, or James Connolly, or Jim Larkin with his giant brown hands.

That's the thing. I can't imagine Jim Larkin as a person. He's just a lad outside Burger King with huge hands. What are you going to do with them, Jim? Going to do some socialism with his hands. He's going to do some socialism with his hands. I'm trying to see now. Have I ran out of questions?

Hope so. Oh, wait. No, we're going to take this to the fucking audience, so you're not... Yeah, that's all the questions from Twitter. So I believe there is... There's not just one roving mic, there's several roving mics, lads. So if anyone has a question,

you can elevate your arm into the air. It looks like the Pope's Mass now that I like to... This gent over here. There's a lad there with a blue t-shirt who's made himself very obvious. And look, the usher is... Behind you, sir. Man! Look at him. He stood up and he was like, And look, the usher is behind you, sir. Man, there's a man.

Look at him. He stood up and he was like, I just stood up, but I didn't think anyone was actually going to give me a mic. It's actually grey. Is it grey? Jesus. Sorry. Was that it, man?

You gave your, that was the question. All right, the lad behind him in the fetching double denim. Thank you. Thank you. All right, the lad behind him in the fetching double denim. Thank you. Thank you. So I'm just wondering, as the two of you are kind of cultural influencers of Ireland and Ireland's culture,

what do you think of Conor McGregor as a cultural influencer? Well, like, He threatened me very recently, so I... I don't know. Look, I like... Here's my... Like, I've said it before. My thing with Conor McGregor, I greatly admire his passion and obsession about fighting. He's...

Like, I don't understand sports, but I understand someone who's obsessed with something. Like, I'm obsessed with art and creativity, so I like when he speaks about that. When he says racist things and stuff, I'm like, ah, come on, Conor, will you? So, like, I get behind the idea of Conor McGregor, but he says things that are a bit racist and homophobic

that we could all do without, you know? I think he needs... APPLAUSE things that are a bit racist and homophobic that we could all do without you know i think i think he could do with um having a conversation with some gay people or some black people what do you think of old connie miggs i agree with you i agree with you about the racism and i really don't i don't understand the world of that. I don't watch it. So it's a bit of a mystery to me really. I'm a bit mystified about his dress sense, you know.

Wearing Rupert the Bear's cast-offs doesn't really... But no, I... I'd love it if he threatened Roddy. Wouldn't that be great? Imagine that. His days are numbered then. No, but I don't really...

I've never seen him fight and I really don't understand that whole thing. But it's hard to avoid him in some ways. But luckily he's not the guy at the corner when every time I turned the corner

he was there waiting for me. I see him as someone, he's got huge potential to become a really brilliant person. Do you know what I mean? He's dedicated, he's passionate about what he does. These are all positive qualities. If he just addresses his discourse,

he could become a cool lad. Any other questions? This lady here with the stripy underarm. Sorry, could you put up your hand again, miss? There we go. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks a million for your time. How are you? God bless. I asked

Roddy a storage question in Smock Alley. I'm not sure if he remembers it. A storage question? Yeah. You've a question. You come to Vicar Street with a question about storage. Storage is one of my great passions. But I'm not going to ask the question, but it was about how often he prints off his work and where does he put the paper. But I have a different question.

Is that a real question? No. There's people. I have a different question. I need to know about this man, that's really specific. Yeah. Why is a person asking you this question that's really specific why is a person asking you this question

but I have a different question alright that's a relief yeah I think you enjoyed it so my question is that you wrote I work in a book shop and you wrote a book for young adults

I think it's called Wilderness and JK Rowling wrote a book for young adults, I think it's called Wilderness, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. And J.K. Rowling wrote a quote and she promoted it and she was like, Riley DeGioia is a genius. So I just want you to answer my question, which is, do you know J.K. Rowling? Does she still accept payments? No, I don't know. Or just flattery? I don't know J.K. Rowling? Does he still accept payments? No, I don't know. Or just flattery?

I don't know her. And actually, the publishers were messing a bit. She was asked about, I think in some magazine, about her favourite book, and she was talking about The Woman Who Walked Into Doors. That's when she referred to me as, I'm reluctant to say it, but she referred to me as a genius.

You are. But then that phrase started appearing on lots of books and particularly children's books for some reason. But she was referring to the woman who walked into doors. And it's really a lovely compliment to get, isn't it? So they're taking

JK Rowling's quote about a harrowing harrowing story of domestic abuse and then going putting that on children's books that's the world

we live in that's capitalism lads this lady here with the front facing palm I didn't it was just an arm. Like, what am I going to say? Yes? Roddy Doyle is involved

in a really cool thing called Fighting Words. And I just wanted to know what inspired him to do Fighting Words. What inspired you to do Fighting Words? Fighting Words is a centre

it was originally when we opened it nine years ago, nearly ten years ago, a centre in Dublin but we actually have centres now in nine different locations throughout the island Belfast, Cork, Galway I won't go through them all but it's growing and it's a

centre that encourages young people children and young people to write. And the inspiration came from a place in San Francisco called 826 Valencia, which a friend of mine, the writer Dave Eggers, had opened. And I went and had a look at it and I was just spellbound. I thought it was absolutely brilliant. So myself and a friend of mine, Sean Love, eventually opened up one here in Dublin. And it's been growing ever since. We were speaking backstage, actually, Roddy,

and I don't know, was it Fighting Words, but you were telling me about some other group that you were involved with, and you told me about a writer who was in direct provision, and I couldn't remember her name, but it sounded... Her name is... She's a volunteer with Fighting Words. Her name is Melatu Okori. Melatu Okori.

Yeah, yeah, she's a brilliant book, a small but brilliant, brilliant book that came out earlier this year. And she was in direct provision for a while, and the language, it's English, but it's as if she's invented her own form of English to capture the the I'm reluctant to use the word the argot if you like that a pigeon yeah because it's people speaking English

some of whom you know for whom English isn't their first language and then also talking to people so they're not sharing it's as if they're not sharing one or even two languages they're actually happen to share a lot and she comes up with this brilliant brilliant very clear it's easy to understand and it's really very uh rhythmic but um yeah that's who i was talking about i can't remember the name of the book unfortunately because i wasn't anticipating this but um it is really i found that like eye-opening just to think that in direct provision, you've got people from multiple parts of Africa with all different dialects and languages, and now they have their own kind of language to speak.

You know, the brilliant thing about it is that you have classrooms in Dublin and all over Ireland where that's the case. Really? Yeah. Yeah. And it is the case. And it's a brilliant thing because I've been now, Fighting Words is open 10 years, so I've been experiencing the written work of kids who go home and speak Polish or go home and speak other languages. And they're writing English. And you know the way our English has extra elbows on it because there's Irish bubbling underneath it?

Yes. Well, you know, these kids are also learning English as spoken in Ireland, and the Polish grammar and the other grammars are bubbling underneath as well. That's going to lead to some pretty cool shading in about 10 years. Oh, it's on the way. It's on the way. It will, like. No, it's on the way. That is going to be class. It's there. It's there.

This gent here, who not only has his hand up, but is making eye contact and furrowing his brows to go, will you ask me? It worked, sir. Come here, blind boy. How are you getting on? I'm fantastic, sir. Just a quick one. Where's Mr. Chrome and how's your relationship with Mr. Chrome at the minute? Mr. Chrome is in Malta. He's in Malta doing a PhD on birds. Here, would you not bring him down to Cordoba? Where's the ocarina? I don't have the ocarina with me.

I'm not allowed to bring it outside the limo. Why didn't you bring the ocarina with you? I should have. I should have. I forgot it. No, Chrome is still around. It's just, if there's singing and dancing to be done, he'll be present. He hasn't gone away. There will be more stuff.

We're working on songs. We're working on videos. This lady here. I chose you because you were reached into the air with three fingers and looked like a Tyrannosaurus Rex. This one's for Roddy. It's not political, I'm afraid. We are just wondering who would you choose,

because if it hasn't happened already, who would you choose to write your autobiography and why? And also, blind boy, do you have any spare vape oil? This isn't vape oil, this is water. Do you have any spare special water?

I can verify that, I saw the water going in. Straight out of the tap. Okay, I'll go to the tap. Cheers. Strangely, who would you get to write your autobiography? And why? who would you get to write your autobiography and why no I actually the only person to write it would be me

and I won't there isn't a decent pamphlet in my life it would be really tedious the book would be really tedious then I got up and made the breakfast so no it would be really tedious the book would be really tedious then i got up and made the breakfast and you know so no it would be really tedious so what about patty clark man i've heard patty clark described as your autobiography but that's no because by people who don't know me they got it right you know so no i am no all my work goes into fiction no i mean there's been several books written about my stuff I mean largely unread

which is good but you know and even I don't know I've no interest in the Wikipedia page but at one point it said that I lived in Monte Carlo I've never lived in I've never been to Monte Carlo what if it was like a biography where it's Roddy Doyle but they

change your life story instead of an author you're a man who dressed up as a crow and bothered dustbins. Yeah, well that's... That's going into my next book. That's getting closer to the inner workings of my head, yeah.

But I've no interest in that, you know. I'd rather just work on my fiction and I've no interest in... I just... At heart, I don't think... I wouldn't read my I just at heart I don't think I wouldn't read my autobiography

so I don't know why I'd inflict it on anyone else and actually I think it's a good piece of advice for most people who write autobiographies in fairness though if you've ever met anyone who's saying that they're writing their memoirs they tend to be the same type of people who shove coke up their arses.

Do you know what? There is a roving mic up around the top and I want to give the poor, poor people at the top the opportunity. So can someone raise a hand? There's someone over there not only raising his hand but his friend is supporting his elbow.

Is there actually a mic up there now, or did I imagine that? Some poor cunt doesn't have to go up the stairs, do they? There's not someone up stairs. Is there an actual microphone up there? All right, sorry people at the top. There's no, is that a microphone or both or two wrists? I'm sorry lads. Do you know what? This is like an inverted version of Shakespeare because usually in Shakespearean theory the people at the top have all the privilege. But instead now we've got the penny stinkers, as Shakespeare would have called you.

You have the microphone. Did you ever hear that theory, Roddy? No. About the way that modern, we'd say the Sopranos and HBO stuff, like The Wire and The Sopranos, the way that it's written was inspired by the shape of Shakespeare's theatre.

No, I have heard that already. So like, do you know, if you look at The Soprano, are you familiar with The Sopranos? Yes! Whenever in The Sopranos they're talking about something kind of boring and political, right, it always takes place in the strip club.

And where that comes from is that when Shakespeare first started doing his theatre in the 16th, 1700s, he used to do it outside the walls of the city of London. So he had an audience that was incredibly mixed. He had an audience of people who spoke English. English in the 16th, 1700s was considered a very lowly gutter language. People with money spoke French because you have to remember there were a couple of generations removed from the Normans. So the crowd were speaking english these

were the these were penny stinkers they paid a penny for their fucking ticket they were in the pit and then the rich people from inside the walls of the city were slumming it that's where the phrase came from they all spoke like french and were mad posh but they were also educated so what shakespeare would do is that he needed to keep the rabble-rousers in the pit happy, and also the educated cunts up there happy as well. So if he had a long political scene, the penny-stinkers would get bored and start throwing fruit, but the people up there would be happy because they had read all the Latin classics. He'd have a sword fight immediately afterwards.

The action to keep the penny stinkers happy. And this is why today in HBO, any of those things, if there's a long political scene, someone gets shot or fucks someone else afterwards. Or there's a set of tits in the background. And it's because of the shape of a building. Do you know what? I also just asked and answered my own question there lads

during the middle of asking the audience so that says a lot about me this gentleman here with the fetching eyebrows how you doing I just wanted to just wondering how you're on How are you doing? I just wanted to, for Roddy, just wondering earlier on, I met you inside in the pub in Tom Kennedy's at the bar.

Just thinking earlier on, as a person who grew up in the north side of Dublin, I'm in my 30s now, and when I look at the social changes, I think it was a snapper was on a couple of weeks ago or a month or two ago on TV. And when I look at the changes that I see around Dublin now as a father and when I see a movie like that or read a book of yours,

it's a completely different world than the Dublin that I know now. I'm wondering as a writer and somebody who commentates on the way that we interact with society, what has been the big changes for you as somebody who looks into the way that we interact in the city that we've all grown up in? Big changes? Changes, yeah. Probably the most significant change is mobile phones. Really?

I think he was talking about gentrification. I know. I know. Who are you? But actually, I do think, in terms of the storytelling, mobile phones. Biggest challenge for a storyteller. The characters of Dublin, the characters that you paint.

The notion that there are no more characters is bullshit. No, no, but it's not the characters. You're one now. You won't give up the microphone there. It's the way we interact. It's the way we interact and the places that we are. Have you seen a change in that yourself?

Of course I have. I'm 60. And if we hadn't seen a change, it would be seriously awful. So yeah, color telly, brilliant invention. It was black and white when I was a kid. And there was no phone in the house. And now we carry around our phones, which is not necessarily a good idea actually. So the changes aren't necessarily just about Dublin, not necessarily about Dublin. There have been awful changes and, you know, good ones too. Socially, the difference between Ireland now

and Ireland then is so phenomenal. Do you think it's the same city that it was 15, 20 years ago? No. And London isn't the same either. Anywhere else I've ever been isn't the same. I don't want to live in a museum, personally. You know? When you speak there as well about mobile phones, if you think of...

If you wrote The snapper now, Sharon's conversation with her friends wouldn't happen in the pub. It would happen over WhatsApp. A lot of it could happen, yeah, over WhatsApp. And someone would take a screen grab, and the text would leak, and that's how everyone would find out.

And the Spanish sailor. Yeah, that's no longer a trope. People would be moving to find the Spanish sailor. I, like... I don't think Spanish sailors exist anymore. I'm sure Spain has a navy. But like,

as a, like that was a trope down in Limerick, like down in Limerick as well, like if Spanish sailor was a go-to answer if you didn't know the da.

Yeah. It was. Yeah, I know. Like that was a thing. It's like, who's the da? I was a Spanish,

it was always a Spanish sailor and we're going in Limerick man there's only fucking fruit imports happening there's no sailor a sailor hasn't come into Limerick now in about fucking 50 years so where are you getting

the Spanish sailors from I don't know but he was a busy man whoever he was yeah so a lot of the storytelling would change yeah there's no doubt about it the commitments wouldn't be

the same either because there's no doubt about it. The commitments wouldn't be the same either because there's an episode, will Deco turn up, will Deco turn up? That tension probably wouldn't be there because they'd know. They'd be looking at their phones. Yeah. So it's a challenge, really, to try and incorporate,

just from a storytelling point of view, mobile phones and that notion of we know everything now and actually we know fuck all, but the same, we know everything now and actually we know fuck all but the same we know everything now so I'd hate to write crime, I'd really hate to be writing crime when so much is, you know, because it's really a challenge when you're looking at telly and there's so much

What did you think of Love Hate? Boring, so Love Hate, brilliant Brilliant That was unreal, a series like one and two of that and three Four Yeah but it was brilliant Brilliant. That was unreal. A series like one and two of that. And three. Four. Yeah.

Yeah, but it was brilliant. It was phenomenal, yeah. It was brilliant. Except, there's one thing with Love Hate, right? Because I managed, like, I fucking adore Love Hate. Stuart Caron, an unbelievable writer. And I loved series one so much that one of the lads who was in Love Hate, fucking Marlo, that actor, he played Danny Dyer for us on a thing that we were doing.

But I got on to him and I said, can I have an actual script from the show, please? Can I see how it is written on paper exactly? And Stuart Carlin, when he was writing, he was writing scenes specifically to pieces of music. Like he would open the episode that I had, very visually perfect, open with a shot of

Daniel O'Connell's statue with pigeon shit on it and a specific song by Fleetwood Mac plays. Yeah, yeah. And that can only exist when it's on RTE. As soon as it goes to DVD,

they can't afford the rights. Oh, it's really, music is horrible. The music is fucking terrible. Music rights are dreadful. The heart is gone. Yeah, yeah. The heart is gone from it when you watch it on DVD.

Yeah. No, the music rights are atrocious. The television series I wrote, Family, it wasn't available on DVD for years and years. The one song I remember from that was Mr. Vane. There's a scene, what was the uncle's name? Janna. John Paul, yeah.

John Paul, and he was sniffing glue around a fire, and the song Mr mr vane was playing yeah well mr ben the rights he was he was holding out for serious money mr ben did that go out to dvd did that go to dvd it did eventually yeah but the problem was the music rights because it was riddled with music and then the music rights were really really complicated and expensive and it's it's such a pity really because music is such a glorious thing yeah yeah anyway have you seen the family it's it's on youtube illegally sorry roddy no that's grand um it is fucking phenomenal and when like rosie reminds me of the family it's's that same grit, that same realism, you know?

And the family, that was based on Woman Who Walks Into Doors. It was the other way around. I wrote The Woman Who Walked Into Doors after family. Really? Yeah. So you wrote that as a screenplay first? Yes.

Yeah. Fucking hell. One more question. This lady here in the green or turquoise jumper. Wrong journey. This lady here in the green or turquoise jumper. Yart, sir. Hiya. How are you? This is kind of a boring question,

but if you could choose... You both love a tune, so if you could choose any band or singer, dead or alive, to see live in their prime, what would it be? I'm glad you expanded on that, because when I heard it in your Scottish accent, I was like, both of you love a chin.

I'm like, I'd never espouse my love for chins. Oh, man, that's a toughie, isn't it? It is, yeah. I've seen an awful lot of the people I'd like, I'd never espouse my love for chins. Oh, man, that's a toughie, isn't it? It is, yeah. I've seen an awful lot of the people I'd like to see, funnily enough, but I'm trying to think, is there anybody... I would actually love... I would love...

He was alive when I was a kid, but I would love to be my own age now and able to experience a Louis Armstrong gig... Oh, yeah... in his prime yeah um i would like to see the blues player robert johnson play in a small sized venue like the workmans yeah thank you um what time is it and there was actually more questions after that because it was a rowdy Saturday night kind of audience. But a few of them were rambly, so I left them off. Anyway, I'm going to be back next week with your regularly scheduled podcast hug.

I hope you enjoyed that. I hope you liked it. It was good crack. So, God bless bless have a good week rock city you're the best fans in the league bar none tickets are on sale now for fan appreciation night on saturday april 13th when the Toronto Rock hosts the Rochester Nighthawks at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton at 7.30pm. You can also lock in your playoff pack right now to guarantee the same seats for every postseason game

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