Hilary Rose on the Young Offenders: 'It has a lot of heart, you are rooting for the characters'

Hilary Rose is bringing The Young Offenders to the stage. Noel Baker finds out what exactly fans can expect as the hit series goes live

Hilary Rose: "Cork city is such a wonderful city, and it’s great to be able to showcase that" Pic: Miki Barlok

So the Young Offenders have finally made it to the splendour of the Cork Opera House? Well, coola boola.

For Hilary Rose, who plays Mairead in the hit show, the upcoming Young Offenders Live event at the Opera House is a case of bringing it all back home — even if she is home most of the time anyway. 

As we speak, she says she is doing the classic parent-in-summer trick of trying to avoid her children for a few minutes, while prepping for the live event, in which she will lead a conversation with her co-stars, reviewing a string of key moments and letting the audience in on some behind-the-camera secrets. But mostly, hopefully, having a laugh.

The inspiration for the live show came from her own Live Wild podcast, on which she interviewed co-stars Chris Walley (Jock) and Alex Murphy (Conor).

“We said let’s make it one step bigger and make a big show of it,” Hilary says. And so now it’s time to add one live audience.

“We never did anything live with Young Offenders,” Hilary, 43, continues. “We needed a break, we did different things, we had no intention of writing a theatrical or live show kind of thing, even though people were crying out for us to tour it. So this is to satisfy fans. It’s a very different commitment from the cast — it is going to be a really, really, really special event — possibly a one-off.

“With this one, I pulled it together so fast, I don’t really have plans beyond it. I’m very conscious a podcast is meant to be live and conversational and so to repeat it, it would feel stagey. This is about seeing how this one goes. We’ll be looking at clips from seasons 1- 3 and playing live — it will be great craic. It will be opened up to a Q+A session as well, so if fans out there really want to ask questions...”

And there are likely to be plenty of those. Hilary, who, as well as her role as matriarch Mairead, collaborates with her husband, director Peter Foott, on the show, is used to fielding queries about Conor and Jock’s harebrained schemes. As Mairead, she often has cause to scratch her head in bafflement or rage at the collective gormlessness of the lads and their ill-starred capers, but she also emphasises the role of the supportive mother, despite the travails.

“It is good writing first and foremost,” she says when asked as to one of the reasons for the show’s longevity in an era when some shows barely make the credits sequence of the pilot before being scrapped. “You could put those characters in any country and in other circumstances and people can still relate to it.

“The second part is yes, it is a really flat-out comedy, but it also has a lot of heart, you are rooting for the characters, you don’t want them to get in trouble.”

Alex Murphy and Hilary Rose in The Young Offenders. Pic: Miki Barlok

That says a lot, considering the film which spawned the TV series saw the lads attempting to pedal down to West Cork to somehow secure some of the floating bales of cocaine adrift after a boat ran aground — a scenario sparked by the real-life €440m drugs haul at Dunlough Bay on the Mizen Peninsula in July 2007.

“Any story has potential, even the story of the chicken crossing the road,” Hilary says. But about the 2007 smuggling shambles, she says there was a lightbulb moment. 

“Yes, we thought nothing has ever been done [about it]. It was two storylines — the two lads’ friendship and then the bigger picture of what happened on the coast that summer.”

Of course, when the BBC series began, the lads started afresh, the characters fleshed out in their natural environs, mostly in and around Cork city. It has proven to be a fine showcase for Leeside.

“There has to be a certain amount of realism that goes with the characters,” Hilary says. “The neighbourhoods we worked in for it were so appreciative and welcoming and really, really brilliant. Cork city is such a wonderful city and it’s great to be able to showcase that, and beyond that, West Cork, and Kinsale. We hope it is showing Cork in a wonderful light.”

Heists, the latest business wheeze, even proposing a move to Spain — Conor and Jock have tried them all. 

For Hilary, the lads are clearly the fan favourites and she sees something of Del Boy and Rodney in Only Fools and Horses in their persistent attempts to come out on top. The fan profile is “12 to 80”, she says, in what she describes as an ensemble piece, but some viewers aren’t shy about professing their love for Mairead.

“‘You remind me of my mom’ — I get so many lads saying that,” she laughs. “It’s really cute. She is such a wonderful character. It is really nice to be able to play one of the first single mum characters in a sitcom — that was brought up quite a bit by others who felt represented by it. She has this anger thing, definitely, but she always has their back.”

Filming has recently concluded on season four of the show. 

Hilary is tightlipped as to what happens, only to say that the show has been able to go in a different direction — as well as shifting to BBC One. 

It is expected to hit our screens next spring. As to whether she, Peter and the rest of the cast felt anyadditional pressure with the shift to the BBC flagship channel, she replies: “Yes and no. We live quite a quiet family life in Cork. We thought ‘brilliant, BBC One, yay’ — that was kind of it. When it goes to broadcast we will feel the pressure a little bit more. So far I have not felt the pressure.”

And so we are back home again, back on Leeside and preparing for a night at the Opera House. 

It is quite remarkable that Hilary and Peter have managed to move their vision onto BBC One while still effectively living and working where it all started for them, and their characters, like they’ve taken the ‘working from home’ mantra to its logical conclusion. 

As Hilary says: “Normally when you have a big TV series you have to travel away for it. Since we have kids, it’s family life and kids that are more important.”

So before Jock and Conor hit our screens in 2024, the audience back in Cork will get to see the cast review and reminisce about what has already gone. That’s if Hilary gets a move on.

“I am still halfway through it, to be honest,” she admits when it comes to selecting the clips. “I have picked a few — fight scenes and stunt scenes — they are very technical to coordinate but also great fun. You look forward to stunt scenes but you’d be wrecked by the end of the day.”

She adds with another laugh: “Let’s just say health and safety improved as time went on.” Chalk it down.

• Live Wild Podcast in Conversation with the cast of The Young Offenders takes place at the Opera House in Cork on Saturday, July 22, at 8PM. Tickets €35, see corkoperahouse.ie