VIDEO: Being Mario Rosenstock

Vickie Maye goes backstage at Mario Rosenstock’s Opera House shows, ahead of his July appearance at the Marquee.

REALLY, it’s all about the teeth, Mario Rosenstock tells me. He nods in the direction of a little blue box where a set of false dentures is safely stored after each show, the responsibility of the make up artist who painstakingly repaints them a neon white each night.

I’m backstage at the Opera House, Cork, watching Mario’s transformation into the Gift Grub Marty Morrissey. It’s the biggest of his nine costume changes of the night so it’s done during the 15-minute interval. He’s already in a polyester white flare-and-waistcoat combo, with open neck black shirt. The arched, pencil-thin brows are painted on, a matted black wig is produced.

The transformation is almost complete. And all the while Mario is chatting to me through the reflection of the dressing room mirror. He talks with great sincerity about the warmth of the audience tonight, how Cork shows are always the first to sell out, that we southerners in particular lap up the political satire.

But I cannot take the conversation seriously, or reconcile this person with the man I met just two hours ago. He adjusts the wig, pulls it back off his forehead — just the slightest nudge — spikes the hair a little more.

And then he is handed the teeth.

He bends over the dressing room table to put them in place. And when he turns around, he is Mario no more.

He’s right — it really is all about the teeth. Hips thrusting, one-liners oozing, he parades around the dressing room, posing for our photographer.

And then, still in Gift Grub-Marty mode, he’s strutting down the stairs, back on stage to a screaming audience, the first of his five sold-out Cork shows.

Two hours earlier, I met a more sedate, slightly nervous Mario Rosenstock in his backstage dressing room. He’s always anxious before a live show, he admits.

The minutes before he goes on stage are spent pacing, walking up and down corridors, repeating his first five minutes of lines over and over. “Once I get through the first few minutes and know I have the audience with me, I’m ok,” he says.

Ian Dempsey sits in the corner. He’s travelled down for the show he’ll be broadcasting from Cork’s Opera Lane for the next two mornings. It’s no surprise to see Ian. He brainstorms the scripts with Mario for the Gift Grub Breakfast Show slots, for the TV shows and for the live gigs. Later, he stands beside me at the back of the Opera House. As co-creator of Gift Grub 15 years ago with Mario, he is passionate about it — his claps are the loudest, his laughs the longest.

Inviting and friendly, the two tell me what I can expect from my first Gift Grub Live experience. There’ll be lots of audience interaction — I check my ticket afterwards to ensure I’m seated safely at the back — and plenty of ad libbing. In fact, it’ll be a very different show from the ones performed elsewhere in the country. About 20% of each show is rewritten to appeal to the audience and its geography. So tonight, for Cork, Roy Keane will get a lot of attention. So will Ronan O’Gara — he’ll host a game show originally intended for Daniel O’Donnell. His character barely features as a mark of respect, Ian tells me, in the week when the singer is mourning his mother’s death.

As Mario and Ian chat, all good-natured banter, there isn’t a hint of ego. The backstage requests are just as low key — bottles of water, a basket of oranges and camomile tea (“I don’t care really so long as it’s healthy”). The Twix bar on the dressing table isn’t his, Mario insists, and he throws it over on the couch to me. “You might need it,” he laughs, pointing at my pregnant bump.

First up, it’s Miriam O’Callaghan to open the show. Then, he will have just 40 seconds to transform into Francis Brennan, with VT footage of other Gift Grub characters on hand to distract the audience. A tiny table of props sits just off stage and a team of two will be on hand to help him change. “I just stand there, arms outstretched like Robocop,” he explains.

I leave him to start his corridor pacing.

When Miriam emerges on to the stage for a ‘Prime Time debate’ at 8.06pm (a pre-recorded Gift Grub Enda is interviewed via ‘live’ link up), the nerves Mario described earlier are well hidden. And when ‘she’ vanishes to make way for Francis, it’s utterly seamless.

Later there’s a Roy Keane ‘This Is Your Life’ sketch, O’Gara as a game show host — and then Mario emerges on stage. As himself. He admits he finds it very revealing, to be exposed to us all without a disguise. But it proves to be one of the highlights of the evening. The audience screams out their favourite character by name, Mario responds with the appropriate impersonation, effortlessly moving through a quick-fire succession of voices. In this two-minute segment, his talents are truly revealed.

The audience erupts as he breaks for the interval. Earlier Mario told me he could relax once he felt the audience were “with him”. It’s no surprise to find an utterly chilled out Mario backstage. Pulling punters up on stage, ad libbing and cracking spontaneous jokes with the crowd, he has them in the palm of his hand.

Part two is bigger and somehow even better. From Gift Grub Marty’s sexy stage moves (with an absolutely mortified girl from the audience), to Tonight With Vincent Browne, Christy Moore, Louis Walsh’s search for a new boy band (made up of ‘maturer’ members of the audience), he closes with one of my favourite Gift Grub faces — Keith Duffy.

And then he’s back for the encore — a frantic and flawless live rendition of Gift’s Sky Sports GAA coverage. He deserves every second of his standing ovation.

Backstage after the show, bottle of water in hand and still in his Keith Duffy leather trousers, Mario is on a high. “It’s always hard to unwind after a show. Either I get drunk, talk rubbish to strangers, or go home and try and watch something to engage my mind, a Napolean documentary or something.”

Tonight it’s back to Hayfield Manor. It has to be an early night, Ian insists. He’s up at 5am for his 7am Breakfast Show.

Arm outstretched to shake my hand, Mario smiles to say goodbye.

Neon teeth back in their little blue box, there isn’t so much as a trace of Marty. The master of impersonations is back to himself again, until tomorrow night at least.

* Gift Grub Live 3 returns to Cork on Saturday, July 12, for Live At The Marquee. Tickets €35 from Ticketmaster 0818 719 300, www.ticketmaster.ie

* Check out Gift Grub’s Marty Morrissey and Miriam O’Callaghan’s message to Irish Examiner readers: