The Overlap On Tour review: Roy Keane and co entertain on visit to Cork
Roy Keane visits Rockmount FC with Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher on The Overlap on Tour. Picture: David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile
After all the medals, those totemic performances for Ireland and Manchester United, the stints in the dug-out, we now have to ask ourselves: Is Roy Keane the new King of Comedy?
Exhibit A: the sheer torrent of one-liners from Cork's favourite son as he accompanies punditry pals Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher, first around Leeside and then to Dublin, as they lark about for The Overlap on Tour. Originally a podcast from Neville, The Overlap has bloomed into something of a mini media empire.
With this episode of the new Sky show anchored around a packed-out show at the Three Arena, the real laughs arrive as the lads visit some local landmarks and pop into Rockmount and Cobh Ramblers for a light-hearted gambol through Roy's early career. Some other national treasures make an appearance, including the great Jimmy Barry Murphy, and the legend that is Paul McGrath, his rapturously-received walk-on at the live event the only time someone seriously threatens to overshadow the bould Roy.
In some ways all this might seem a very unKeanelike thing to do: joshing around in front of the cameras, kissing the Blarney Stone, veering into light entertainment territory, where the next logical step would be Roy and co on the golf course, or fishing on a lake somewhere.
Yet after all the sulphurous alpha-male tension of his playing career, Roy's football punditry has come to be admired as much for his acerbic comments as it is for any searing insights into how to beat a high press. With Neville as sparring partner and Carragher as the third banana, the Overlap on Tour allows the former pros to wend their way down the avenues of Roy's life, a well-placed gag never far away.
So, we have a Liverpool flag flying above Blarney Castle (Roy: "It's at half mast") and Neville in awe at how such incredible structures were built all those centuries ago (Roy: "I can't get someone to fix the boiler".) But the show is not without flashes of insight. Roy still seems a little astounded at how everything turned out when he says it was "virtually impossible" all those years ago to imagine vaulting from Mayfield to top flight English football.
And while playfully ribbing former players in a succession of anecdotes, Roy queries why Neville continues to refer to Alex Ferguson as "boss" all these years later. He is also charm personified at Rockmount and Cobh, exuding a fondness and respect for those who helped him in those early years. Weirdly, Roy now seems to have metamorphosised into everyone's supercool, bearded uncle - someone who is still vaguely intimidating but who'll also stick 50 quid in your birthday card. It's not a bad look.
And of course, there are the jokes. As Neville muses on his ill-starred managerial stint at Valencia, he says he made three mistakes. Roy is in immediately with a reducer: "You got on the flight..."
And on it goes, proceedings mercifully never veering too far into the dreaded realm of "banter", with Roy and co carrying a sense of fun and the ridiculous on their travels. If they keep going in this vein, it will all be grand. Just steer clear of the prawn sandwiches, lads - Roy doesn't like those.
- The Overlap On Tour is on Sky Max and Sky Now
