Jon Kenny and Pat Shortt - the wildly exuberant and entertaining D'Unbelievables - are working on their new show. So what is D'ats Life about? Talking to them a month or so ago, the two central characters were brothers who run an undertakers in a small town and who see a career opportunity in the death of a blues singer, and when they commandeer the funeral, events take on a life of their own.
I run into them a few weeks later. How are the brothers going? Actually, now they're a father and son - Kenny the bossy father, Shortt the local politician son. When last we spoke - a week ago - it's back to two brothers, but two different characters; this time they run a pub where the wake and post-funeral get-together take place.
The father, says Shortt, "was real and we were getting a bit of humour out of him but it just wasn't getting us where we wanted to get it. We tried a different character - the brother of the guy, but not the brother that we had originally - a different type of brother, more domineering."
D'Unbelievables work in an organic way, creating characters that are rowdy or poignant or over-the-top, but always with a grain of truth, both of them playing each role, working out what happens next, who would be a good person to bring on stage, changing things as they go along. "We really have the first half tied down at the moment," said Shortt. "The second half is nearly there. The big thing is the relationship between those two brothers (Ned and Maurice Hickey), and they determine the story at the end of the day, and all the other characters fall into place. We haven't quite tied that down and locked it into concrete but we're close to it now." Shortt plays Maurice Hickey, who is "very confident and a great man with the people. But in his own house he's completely dominated by his brother Ned. . . it's a tough one to get fixed up because the audience can be confused seeing him out, all boisterous and having the crack and chatting to people and give-me-your-vote, and then at home the older brother Ned would kick the shit out of him, nearly, around the house."
The show is still in a state of change, but, "the way it's looking at the moment is that Maurice, who's running for election, decides he'll pull a bit of a scam or a stroke and claim that the singer Wild Willie Wallace, who's died, wanted to be waked in their pub". Maurice gets an old coffin and sets up a fake wake for Wallace, "an American singer, or an English singer - whatever it is, he's a foreign guy anyway" who's supposedly related to the Wallaces in the parish. Meanwhile, his brother, Ned (Kenny) has other plans - "he's more sophisticated," grins Shortt. "He spent a year in Athlone in catering college and he has grand notions that they're going to start doing food in the bar. Not a restaurant, but food." But the two things clash on the night, and, well, we'll have to see. The last time Kenny and Shortt did their own show was nine months ago, when they last performed I Doubt It Says Pauline - about a mother and son and the local gala in the village hall, which followed their previous show, One Hell of a Do - in the Circle in the Square Theatre in New York's Bleeker Street. Since then things have been busy for Kenny, from Co Limerick, and Shortt, from Tipperary.
They had straight acting roles in a delicious piece of casting as the demented, hate-filled brothers in Druid's production of Martin McDonagh's The Lonesome West; they did more of the memorably humorous National Lottery ads, featuring Butty Brennan (Shortt) and Roundy Mooney's mother (Kenny); they made another video, D'telly, which sold over 100,000 copies and was a huge Christmas success; Shortt was in a comedy film, as yet untitled, which stars Ian Hart and Niamh Cusack, shot in Donegal last summer. Busy boys. Only now do they have the chance to develop a new live show, another piece of rural or smalltown madness, peopled with characters who have more universal resonance, all played by Kenny and Shortt (with occasional help from the audience) in their trademark cartoon-style costumes and headpieces made, as usual, by Des Dillon from Clonmel, who works in soft sculpture.
But it's not just the two brothers who will figure in D'ats Life when it opens on Monday at Dublin's Vicar Street, after some previews there and in Kilmallock, Co Limerick. There's a range of fresh characters, including local DJ Paudie Power, and Nurse Moloney, a nurse in the local clinic. Originally, she was in the story because she was in the father's nursing home. What's she up to in the new scheme of things? Pat laughs. "I don't know. She's a great character - originally she tied in in loads of ways. By next week I'll have a reason for her to be there!" Nurse Moloney is "pure casual", says Kenny. "For her it's just a job - whatever she sees doesn't daunt her, it's just going through the motions. She's not fazed by anything; it's all just routine."
THERE are also the two balladeers, the Napper Tandys, who are booked for the wake night - "there's a few free drinks going and the boys take advantage of that and one becomes very honest about the ballads and says they're all a load of shite and that every ballad sounds the same," says Shortt, while Kenny adds: "They're both from the country - the heart of Limerick or Tipperary or somewhere - but when they sing ballads they sing in Dublin accents and they want to sound like Ronnie Drew. And they put on false beards - that's their band costume - `did you bring your beard Mike?', `I didn't bring my fecking beard!' They work very well visually and their music is just so bad. They've written a tribute to Wild Willie Wallace, and it's just absolutely dreadful."
There's a surreal touch with two horses looking over a wall, describing the antics at the human funeral. "I'm the ass and Jon is the horse", and "a west-of-Ireland man that Jon does. His whole body is distorted and Des made a coat and wig and handkerchief that all goes to one side - it looks like he's being blown in the wind. He's an outsider who lives in the area - he came down from the hill, cause there's no place up there cause all the Germans have the houses bought up."
Kenny and Shortt have earned a reputation in Ireland - and further afield - based on talent, hard work and pure entertainment, and a fresh new show is a tantalising prospect. They've been hugely successful, but "we're not in the rock 'n' roll stakes at all," says Pat. "I can afford to take a few months off, and then I need to get out and make a few pound again!" The return in this show to characters who are brothers owes less to their roles in The Lonesome West than to their own relationship - "myself and Jon are almost like brothers". And do they fight? "Not in ages. We have been known to in the past, but we haven't had an argument in two years, though we argue about the script every day!"
D'ats Life opens for a seven-week run at Vicar Street, Dublin, on Monday before touring around Ireland.