Jon Kenny was one half of the very successful D'Unbelievables with Pat Shortt when cancer struck. Three years on, the dynamic duo are no more and he's flying solo, writes Brian Boyd
This time three years ago, D'Unbelievables were on top of the comic heap. Jon Kenny and Pat Shortt slogged it the hard way around the country, starting off as curiosities, then attracting interest and ending up smashing box office figures with their live runs, having the biggest-selling Irish video released and branching out into the UK with their work on BBC2's The Fitz and into straight acting with leading roles in Martin McDonagh's acclaimed The Lonesome West.
Through shows such as One Hell Of A Do, I Doubt It, Says Pauline and Dat's Life, Kenny and Shortt created their own A-Z directory of Irish social and political life. Basing their routines on the time-honoured, but largely forgotten, traditions of harlequinade and commedia dell'arte, they brilliantly dissected the latent madness in Irish country life - inter-provincial rivalry, tragic one-upmanship and cute hoordom. To this day, their videos outsell the Father Ted videos by a ratio of three to one in Ireland.
From an early residency in An Beal Bocht pub up to the Olympia Theatre and then the National Stadium and onwards to New York, Moscow and Zambia, the success was huge. Three years on and Jon Kenny has just finally got over cancer - Hodgkins disease, a cancer of the lymphatic glands, Pat Shortt had gone on to a spectacularly successful solo show and D'Unbelievables are broken up.
"The cancer came at just the wrong time," says Kenny, doing his first round of interviews in three years to launch his new solo tour. "I had tumours removed and a stem cell transplant, but just last November I got the all clear, I'm fine again, but I have to go back for three-monthly check-ups.
"They think it might have been something to do with my immune system, burning the candle at both ends, diet, stress - it could have been anything. At the time we really were top of the pile, but we were too busy to realise it. Somebody said to me once, 'Do you realise how successful you are and how well you are doing?" and I just said 'No' because I didn't, it was on to the next gig. I know we've done very well out if it, but you don't think like that. It was crazy the volume of the travelling we were doing. We had become like a commodity, we were suddenly aware of all the overheads, that we had people working with us, and we were always been asked by people who ran venues and promoters to do more work."
Now aged 46, the treatment for his cancer forced some lifestyle changes on him. "Before I had put all my energies into D'Unbelievables, then all my energies were absorbed into the treatment. I had to change things - I was drinking green tea, eating honey and taking multi-vitamins, all of that sort of stuff. There was still the old me though and one night when I was in the hospital, I escaped and went out for a few drinks - the people there weren't exactly thrilled by that"
He did entertain thoughts of packing the showbiz life in while receiving treatment. "It's strange though, the work becomes part of you, it's all I know, it's been my life. There's always that insecurity, and I am still self-employed. There was also a bit of that thing where we had become so successful and I didn't want to let go of that success. What really turned it around for me though was when I was running in this new show in a few small theatres. The audience response was amazing. I did about two and a quarter hours in those shows, I was so wrapped up in it that I had to stop and ask the audience what time it was. It was a great buzz. I enjoyed it all the more because it was really relaxed. There was no panic. One night I just decided to pick up the guitar and do a ballad. Before I would have been worried if that was a good time in the show to do that, but this time I didn't care."
But the idea all the time he was recovering was that once-better, D'Unbelievables would pick up where they left off. Kenny was very supportive of Shortt's solo career while he was still sick. "I felt fine about it, I was delighted about it, it was no problem. In a way it relieved the pressure off me in that I knew that now he didn't need me, he's wasn't dependent on me. So that made me really relax, thinking that if I didn't want to go back to doing this, I could."
The professional relationship between Kenny and Shortt is an odd one in that Shortt started out as very much a side-kick. Over their years together though, Shortt built up more confidence and was contributing more and more to the show. Of their personal relationship now, Kenny says, "We don't see one another, he's always working. I did see one of his very early solo shows. I don't want to go back into the past though, it's now about what I want to do myself. The best of luck to him. I don't dwell on it and I don't feel let down by his solo career. Yes, D'Unbelievables are over but perhaps not finished completely. We had 12 good years, very good years, but at the moment I think we just need more space and more time."
Kenny describes his new show as "bit of everything - there'll be some of the characters we've met over the years and a lot of new ones too. I do talk about my illness, the funny things and the bizarre things that happened to me along the way. There'll be a whole range of different characters, a bit of music and people will find that I've changed the style of the show. It won't be as clown-like as previous shows."
The other main change will be that he won't be touring with the same ferocity as he used to. "Obviously what happened to me changed my perspective on a lot of things. This time out I'll be doing maybe a few weeks of work and then stopping for a while and then going back to it. I don't feel I have to compete at a certain level any more, I feel in some sense I have proved myself. But even now, some of the shows that I'm doing on this tour have sold out and people are asking me to add on more dates. In the past I would have, but not this time and I'm happy with that. Mind you, my accountant is really pissed off."
Jon Kenny is at the University Concert Hall, Limerick, October 6th-8th; Vicar Street, Dublin, October 23rd-25th and Cork Opera House on November 3rd