Culture That Made Me: PJ Gallagher on Richard Pryor, AC/DC, and Mike Murphy
PJ Gallagher recently released his autobiography, Madhouse.
PJ Gallagher, 48, was born in Cork. He grew up in Marino and later Clontarf in Dublin. In 2005, his antics in the hidden camera series Naked Camera endeared him to Irish television audiences. A successful career in stand-up comedy ensued. He is also an actor, including appearances in The Young Offenders. He co-hosts a breakfast radio show, Morning Glory with PJ and Jim, on Radio Nova. His memoir is published by Penguin
Cheers was the first time I saw an American sitcom with all the characters laid out: a grumpy one, a smart one, a dopey one, a romantic one. It was all so clearly defined, down to the soundtrack — the famous song, 'Where Everybody Knows Your Name'. I can sit down and watch it over and over again. I absolutely love that show.
Some Mothers Do ’Ave ’Em was the first time I remember seeing pure slapstick, funny for the sake of being funny. No one had to make a point. The stories were completely irrelevant. It was one hilarious man hurting himself over and over again, and ending up in the most embarrassing situations over and over again. There was something about the incompetence of that man that was so funny — this daft idiot in a beret repeatedly ruining his own life. There’s nothing funnier than that. It’s dated horrendously, but I still get such nostalgic laughs looking back at it.
Richard Pryor is the greatest stand-up comedian ever. His first special was filmed in the seventies. You can watch that today, and it looks like a stand-up set written for Netflix. It's amazing the way that his performance has lasted through all those decades. I don't think even Billy Connolly has done that. Every stand-up comedian that came through the US for 40 years after him kinda copied him a little. That shows how good he was.
So many documentaries are about politics or one person's incredible struggle against adversity, but Man on Wire — from around 2008 — is just about a man who had a ridiculous dream of walking a tightrope between the Twin Towers before they were even built. It's a mission of the pointless. It mattered to nobody but him. It changed nothing in the world, but it changed his life completely. It's a story well told with bizarre characters, who play their part to make it happen. He survived it. He’s still alive. The Twin Towers aren't, which is an odd twist in the tale. It's brilliant.
AC/DC’s Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap had it all for a young kid — proper rock 'n' roll, ridiculous songs about Big Balls, the events, not the other ones you keep in your trousers. The word play is hilarious. It has everything, including almost blues style guitars with, like, Ain't No Fun (Waiting ’Round to Be a Millionaire). I went to sleep to it almost every night for a long time.
My favourite play — and one of the first plays I ever saw — was Marina Carr’s By The Bog of Cats at The Abbey Theatre around 1998. I had such an amazing feeling after watching that crazy play. I was one of the last people to leave the theatre after it ended. It was performed so well I didn't want to leave because I thought I'd never see anything like that again. I went to drama school after seeing the play because it blew my marbles completely.
Nip/Tuck was a disturbed show about two plastic surgeons who end up in criminal enterprise, based in Florida. It's of its time, early noughties, where everything is superficial. Everybody's obsessed with owning things, and with their looks, which is what it’s about. There are so many weird storylines. The main protagonists are not that nice as people, but they get the strangest requests. One woman, her husband dies and she wants to get his ashes put into her boobs. It was the first show — at a time when we started binge-watching box sets — where I couldn't watch something else. I got addicted to it.
The funniest thing I saw on The Live Mike show was Mike Murphy handing someone a shotgun at a pond, saying he had to kill a duck. Imagine standing in St Stephen’s Green now with a rifle? One of the simplest things he did was so funny, calling to a random house and dropping his washing in, pretending he was related to them. Seeing how polite people were at the time, in the early 1980s — talk about a kick back to another Ireland. If you knocked on someone’s door now in Dublin or Cork City and asked them to do your washing, they’d call the Gardaí — or shoot you. It’s not going to end well.
I’ve loved Rocky ever since I was a kid. I have a Rocky Balboa tattoo. I love the way he loses the fight in the first movie. People always forget that. Apollo Creed wins the fight. That's why Rocky II was the rematch and he becomes the champion. It's about going the distance. Can you go toe to toe? Can you see something through? It's not a big victory story. It's more a movie of a fella finding his way in life. His relationship with Adrian is imperfect. Neither of them are particularly good-looking. His coach Mickey is a cranky old bollix. Which one of us hasn't had a Mickey in our lives? It all feels so real. The film is the best moral story ever written. Everything about that movie I love.
I did three months in St Pat’s psychiatric hospital. While there, I started reading Liz Nugent’s book, Unravelling Oliver. At the start, I remember thinking it wasn’t a good idea because she writes really dark books with dark characters, but I got lost in her world, so zoned in I wasn't thinking about anything else around me. I ended up reading all her books, to the point that when I came out of hospital I sent her a message on Twitter, saying, “I want you to know how much I loved your book, Unravelling Oliver, and how much it meant to me at the time. You don't know me, but I just wanted to let you know.” She replied: “Not only do I know you, we're actually related.” So I found out we were second cousins. We’ve become friends since then.
A podcast I’m listening to now all the time is The Rest is History. I love it. They get the balance right between giving you the facts and keeping it entertaining. They’ve just done a series on The Aztecs. It's brilliant. They make it sound like a drama, almost like a piece of fiction. It’s deadly.
