What a Difference a Day Makes with Geoff Gould: ‘I had a row with Dad before he died — it took a while to get over’

Former artistic director of The Everyman Geoff Gould didn’t always have the most peaceful relationship with his dad, John. He tells Helen O’Callaghan about the night he learned his father had died, about the impact on him, and how for a long time he underestimated his dad’s massive influence on him.

Faith Healer by Brian Friel is directed by Geoff Gould. Picture Dan Linehan

The night I found out my dad died, September 4, 1984, I was out for a pint with friends in the Phoenix Bar, Cork, a bar I’d never been in before — normally I’d be in Clancy’s.

I felt there was something not right, I said to the lads, ‘I don’t feel well, I’m going home.’ They were looking at me — anybody who knows me knows I’d never leave a pub! 

My future brother-in-law met me at the end of the stairs. He’d been searching for me in different pubs.

He said, ‘I have bad news.’

I said, ‘Gran is after passing’ — she was 93, living with us.

He said, ‘No, your dad. ’

Dad was 51, I was 22. He’d been sick a long time, had his first heart attack at 40 — we nearly lost him. He had another at 43. 

He was one of the first, aged 48, to have open heart surgery with cardiologist Maurice Neligan. 

I remember in my mid-teens Mum and I thumbing a lift to the Mater in Dublin to see him — different times. A lorry driver from Moorepark, Fermoy, kindly gave us a lift.

But that night he died, something hadn’t felt right. I think something happens… I’ve a huge belief in the spiritual world. It’s always been that way. 

I had two mad, eccentric aunts. When they’d come home from the pub, they’d bring me, seven years old, downstairs in my pyjamas to do the Ouija board — they thought I had some power.

But that night in the Phoenix, it felt like a huge cloud. My brother, my three sisters, my mum already knew by then… maybe it was their shock coming at me.

His death was a massive shock. I’d had a row with him before he died. Myself and my now wife, Jacinta, were going away for a weekend with four or five other couples.

It was harmless enough, but he was really cross about it — he was heavily moralistic, didn’t want me to go. But I was going. We argued.

After that weekend, I met him on the road, he rolled down the car window, still as cross as ever, so the last exchange we had was cross.

It took a while to get over — a great friend said he probably wasn’t well; when people aren’t well, they’ll get cross.

Faith Healer by Brian Friel is directed by Geoff Gould. Picture Dan Linehan

I didn’t see Dad’s death as a defining moment til a friend said recently, ‘Your dad’s death had a big effect...’

Looking back, going into the theatre was going into territory he’d have been very excited about. He was a great singer, a brilliant actor with the Marian Players in Doneraile. 

He had done the circuit. It’s how he met Mum — she was a make-up lady, he an actor on the stage.

He loved acting, dragged us in on every opportunity. It wasn’t really our thing, but we were in the musicals around 1970, ’71. 

When I was 15, he said, ‘You’ll play Rolf in The Sound of Music.’ I said no, but I did it — you didn’t say no to Dad. I ended up kissing on stage, I hated it… for a 15-year-old boy. I swore: Never again.

I worked in banking for 14 years, and was doing that when Dad died — he loved that I was in the bank. I’d never have seen myself falling back into theatre. 

When I was first asked by a very persevering teacher, Mary O’Higgins, I said no way. 

I knew how much time and effort was involved — I wanted to run away. But Mary persuaded me into Mallow Pilgrim Players — I did the lead in Annie Get Your Gun, which I had a line in as a child when my father dragged me in.

I became artistic director of the Everyman Palace in 1997. In 2001, I was accepted onto a director course at LAMDA. 

I’m a terrible actor, but as a director, I’ve a skill in helping actors find the character. I’ve huge admiration for what actors do.

The more I got pulled into theatre, the more Dad existed. In the theatre, he’s never far from my thoughts.

Talking of the spiritual, the weirdness of life, I’m standing now on the stage of the Palace Theatre, Fermoy, where I had that line in Annie Get Your Gun and my brother, Bernard, had the lead – the first musical Dad got us into around 1970.

A great saying he had: ‘Briseann on dúchas trí shúile an chait’ — ‘like father like son’. I see it everywhere — things we have in common: I love gardening, whiskey, backing horses; so did he. Like him, I love theatre, music, and singing in pubs.

I spent a lot of time at loggerheads with him. That saying — ‘I thought my father was a clown when I was 18, at 23 I thought he’d improved a lot, at 30 I thought he was a genius’. Really, it’s we grow up, not them.

There’s a huge connection between Dad and me. I have his signet ring on my finger. I turned it into a wedding ring when Jacinta and I got married.

He had way more of an influence on me than I ever gave him credit for.

• Cork-based theatre company Blood in the Alley, founded by Geoff Gould in 2003, is currently presenting Brian Friel’s Faith Healer.
• Directed by Gould, it’s at Limerick’s Lime Tree Theatre, October 15 and 16; and Pavilion Theatre, Dun Laoghaire, October 17 and 18 (Matinée October 18).
• https://limetreebelltable.ie/#filter=
• https://www.paviliontheatre.ie/