The three grand girls are back in town - here come The Nualas, the all-girl singing Irish group, superstars whose platformed feet are firmly rooted in the muck. Their Big Shiny Bikini Tour is in full flow at the Tivoli in Dublin, where the agricultural Spice Girls on acid are charming chuckles out of the crowds with their mix of down-home appeal, sassy knowingness and beautiful harmonies.
This is their first major outing since their successful three-week run at London's Drill Hall earlier this year. How was London? "That Tube thing is crazy, very racy," says Nuala. "Not a lot of smiling going on in London," adds Nuala, "but we smiled - people thought we were crazy, but we smiled, like you do in Ireland - howya, how's it goin'? - and they'd go, `feck off, what are you doing with that carrier bag?' "
The bespectacled musical parody trio - comprising Nuala, Nuala and Nuala - confidently tell the audience from the stage about how their lives are full of "stretch limos, stretch jeans - and stretch marks". "We are very sophist - travelling the world, part of that Irish supergroup set of Boyzone and Bewitched and Big Tom and the Mainliners, the Corrs and all them."
But the dizzy heights of the big city were clearly a bit too glittery for the bitter-(and twisted)-sweet trio. After the show Nuala looks for a cigarette. "We started smoking in London. Oh, it's a disgrace. We did all sorts of things, very mad. We started doin' coke in London," she says matter-of-factly. "And we started shooting up."
Since then "it was a bit of a culture shock coming back, but we eased in slowly. I was driving the tractor a bit too fast for a while." Nuala interrupts: "Her favourite bullock didn't recognise her, we were away so long."
"Yes," Nuala agrees. "My hair was all spiky, and I was wearing big Carnaby Street boots and I'd got my bellybutton pierced while I was there." Nuala chimes in: "Fortunately we're so fat you'd have to have a big spike thing sticking out before you'd notice our bellybuttons are pierced!"
They found receptive audiences for their harmonised nuttiness in London - including lots of people with Irish connections, but also a big lesbian following. "I'll tell you, Nuala got so many offers," says Nuala. "She is reviewing her situation as we speak. She took stock of her sexuality. She got letters." Nuala joins in to elaborate: "The letter A. It's a beautiful one."
In truth, says Nuala, dropping into her alter ego Anne Gildea, "we had three weeks of magic gigs - magic happened almost every night. We had the most extraordinary time in the most lovely venue." They're back to London's Drill Hall in September for another three weeks, following 11 dates at the Assembly Rooms in the Edinburgh fringe, which will be a far cry from their first visit to the festival, when they slept on floors and played free gigs to get attention.
The Nualas have been together in one form or another since early 1995, building a wider audience base than many other comedy acts for their slightly hick girl band, a sort of Nolan Sisters cum Dana, injected with a dose of Spice. They've worked hard to hone their images - the ironically prudish identities married to a worldly earthiness, the daft selection of specs, the spangly dresses (for the Big Shiny Bikini Tour they're in short, flowery summer frocks - "Thanks to Playtex for the 15-and-a-half-hour girdles we're wearing on stage tonight - I'm not joking, without this girdle I wouldn't have got away with wearing this dress on stage") - and their songs.
They sing about holiday romance and unrequited love and relationships, but they also sing about Curly Kay, "the girl with a cabbage for a head", and a cycling nun. And they sing their failed entry for Eurovision, preceded by some chat about how well previous winners have done - "Johnny Logan is huge in Turkey. On the prison circuit. The theme song for Midnight Express the Sequel was What's Another Year?"
The lyrics are daft and comical and full of delightful juxtapositions and non sequiturs - but, boy, can they sing, and in a variety of styles too: poppy, jazz, rap - and "Enya-style". Along the way they've picked up British and Irish agents, performed in Australia and Singapore and had a BBC Radio 4 series.
During the show at the Tivoli - a mix of old and new songs, with bright, clever between-song chat and audience banter - they announce: "Sure feck it, we're taking a huge financial risk for this show . . . so do tell all your friends 'cause we'd hate to lose all the farm animals on this."
The third Nuala (sounds like a spy movie), actor/singer Susannah de Wrixon, joined Gildea and Sue Collins in the super-group only last autumn, replacing Karen Egan, and is now well-assimilated into Nualadom and is comfortable and confident on stage.
Says Nuala Anne: "It's a bloody hard thing to come into a group." She grins. "I mean, we're bitches! You know there's been two other Nualas? The rumours are all true!"
"It's the drummer out of Spinal Tap. We burn her with the curling tongs," says Nuala Sue. Nuala Anne: "This is the first masochist we've had! All we needed was a masochist Nuala." "That's right," says Nuala Susannah, "Jesus, you should see my back! I can hardly get up in the mornings."
So, after their London excitement what are the superstars doing next? "We're looking for a record deal." They are immediately back in character. "There's a fellow in Roscommon interested. He's got a studio up there - Sounds Ahoy, it's called."
"And he's got this great keyboard. He can do a whole orchestra on it. But he's only at grade three on the piano so it limits what he can actually do for the backin'."
"His name is Peadar O Tualain, and he's like fecking Liberace."
The superstars discuss how he plays this magic keyboard, and the discussion goes off the mad scale . . . "Look, no hands." "He has no hands so he couldn't use them anyway. They came off in a baler accident - a poor cow freaked out . . ."
Sue Collins and Anne Gildea - along with their co-writer Kevin Gildea (Anne's brother and Sue's intended) - have written the first episode of their second BBC Radio 4 comedy series, due for broadcast in December/January. The first series, broadcast last autumn, was nominated for the best scripted comedy radio series in last year's British Comedy Awards, and The Nualas - followed by fellow comedian Jason Byrne - rang in the New Year on the same radio station.
This second series will be more sitcom-based, they say, with fewer musical numbers. The plot involves the three Nualas coming up to Dublin from the country to make it - "We're leaving Clandangan 'cause we were going nowhere. Going round in circles. In the one bar. And various things happen to them in the city. It's a different direction - more sophisticated, very surreal."
The sitcom structure will also involve having to distinguish more sharply between the Nualas than they do in their stage shows. It may involve a triangle of characters:
Nuala of the childlike innocence, who's homesick a lot of the time ("I'm thick," says De Wrixon of her Nuala); a practical, mother hen of a Nuala (Collins) and a rebellious teenager-type who is a bit dreamy (Gildea).
What else are they up to? "Well, I'm getting my legs waxed tomorrow, and Nuala is getting her bedroom redecorated. And I'm going to hoover my flat. You see, people think it's glamorous, they have this kind of illusion about our world. It's not . . . we're living on the edge. On the edge of going into another business completely! If there is anybody out there who thinks they could apply us to their organisation please get in touch!"
But they have goals. "World domination." "Mortgage approval." "We've given up on the weight front," says Gildea refreshingly; in a world of stick-insect role models, The Nualas, though a ridiculous fiction, are real women. Gildea marvels how "You know we've got telly coming up and you look in the mirror and go `look at the state of me', and there's still no incentive! It's too fecking hard!" Collins comments: "You know, Cameron Diaz can eat whenever she likes." And there follows a discussion about how handy it would be if you gained weight on the soles of your feet.
They talk about meeting a woman who is an agent for top models. Collins: "So we asked her what goes on - do they eat? And she said they eat sushi and drink water. So we tried that. With a load of rice. And then we went to Cafe Kylemore afterwards." We're back into Nuala territory now. "The problem is when we have sushi we have it with chips - it's just not the same." Nuala adds: "Actually, we ordered sushi and brought it home and dipped it in batter and fried it. Cause we thought, `God there's no feckin' taste on this'."
The Nualas's Big Shiny Bikini Tour runs Mon to Sat, 8 p.m., at the Tivoli Theatre, Dublin until July 3rd