As he sets off to tour Australia and New Zealand, Pat Shortt chats to Maxi about his life as a comedian, composer, lyricist, writer, actor, theatre and television star.

 

“I would grab a carton of milk and be in the queue. A flood of builders in high-visibility jackets would be ahead, saying ‘two rashers, two sausages and a bit of sauce on a breakfast roll’.”
Pat Shortt is talking to me about the inspiration for The Jumbo Breakfast Roll, the chart-topping song that still brings a smile to everyone’s face.

“I had written it for a character. He was a builder during the boom and he loved country and western music. It stemmed from a time when I used to go to the office around ten when I was writing a show … I didn’t go too early! They were building a motorway and the builders took their break around this time. I wrote the song about it.

“When I was going on The Late Late Show, I told the team in the office I wanted to sing The Jumbo Breakfast Roll. They said ‘Don’t’!

“They felt it was a great gag and a great song and they felt I’d be giving it away. But I did it, and it was a viral moment! The disc jockeys loved it and were impatient to play it. We had a rush on Sony to get it pressed and released and it became one of the biggest selling singles of all time.

“I performed it recently on The Two Johnnies show and it got two point seven million hits the next day. Eighteen years after its first release, it is as popular as ever. It’s mad! It’s just one of those things that took off, I can’t explain it.”

Pat has a great fondness for The Late Late Show. His first appearance on it, as part of the duo ‘D’Unbelievables’ with his professional partner, the late Jon Kenny, was pivotal to his life and career.

“The big turning point for D’Unbelievables was when the late Gay Byrne invited us to appear on The Late Late Show. At the time we were two young comedians and we were finding it too difficult to be accepted in the theatre in Dublin. The doors were not open for us. It’s as simple as that. We were not considered traditional theatre.

“There were no comedy clubs in Ireland and there was no comedy scene at all. So the only available gig would be to go on before a band, for example.

“So, we got a chance to go to America, to New York, and to appear at the Irish Arts Center. It went huge for us. We got an amazing reaction, and we were there for months and months.”

“Frank and Malachy McCourt came to see us. They had a show called A Couple of Blackguards, a precursor to Angela’s Ashes. They were very supportive and introduced us to the Natural History Tour. It was from the West Coast to the East Coast and all through mid-America. So, we were doing a lot of work in the USA yet but we had not cracked it in Ireland. So our very good friend underwrote us to perform in Andrew’s Lane Theatre. It was the week after the theatre festival and the worst week – considered in the business to be ‘dead’. We had our green cards and were all set to move to America because things were going so well, yet we did want to break Ireland, and our preference was to stay in Ireland. But, in Ireland, we wanted to move up from performing in pubs, and change to theatre.

Continue reading in this week’s Ireland’s Own