BRENDAN was still playing the part of the perfect waiter. But in the meantime he took everything he could from the experience.
‘I didn’t see the job as simply serving people. For me it was a history lesson, it was about how the Ottomans introduced coffee to the West and the colour of the Capuchin monks’ robes gave cappuccino its name. It was about developing people skills.’
Brendan drank in the knowledge. And he loved looking after people.
‘After I served my apprenticeship, I began working at weddings, at the likes of Ashbourne House (in the wealthy North Dublin suburb where he would later live).
‘I loved it when a young couple came to me in January, with the wedding planned for September, to play a part in making sure this was the happiest day of their lives.
‘And I don’t think anything has changed. You go on stage now and you present an experience, make it the very best it can be. You want the audience to remember who made the night that bit special.
‘At sixteen I had qualified as a waiter and I was getting a full adult wage. And I was happy enough. But at seventeen, I remember one night in the hotel serving a bunch of guys who were at school with me who had come out to dinner to celebrate having passed their leaving exam. I remember thinking that night, “These guys might become doctors or lawyers or bank managers. I might have made a mistake.” But it was a mistake I could live with.
‘And, from seventeen on, I was always in and out of jobs. Sometimes I’d leave a job, sometimes I’d be headhunted, getting a bit more money each time. Always doing the best I could. I had a good work ethic. But, just as importantly, I had a belief all would be fine.
‘My mother was always getting one of my brothers – who shall remain nameless – jobs. And I remember one time saying to her, “Jaysus, Ma, why don’t you get me a job?” And she smiled and said, “You’ll be all right, Brendan.”
‘She never, ever, said to me, “What are you going to do for the rest of your life?” And I suppose I wondered, “Did she not give a damn – or did she know something?” So one day I asked her about what I’d end up doing and she said, “Stop worrying, Brendan. Your future’s assured.”’
Brendan was happy to be seen as the best waiter in Dublin, but there were signs his eye was on something else.
‘In 1972, I was a fresh-faced waiter in the Green Isle Hotel in Clondalkin. And every Saturday night we had a cabaret in the restaurant, with Norman Metcalf playing the organ and various artists plying their trade. I was lucky enough to have seen Cecil Sheridan there.’
Cecil Sheridan was a parody master, a panto king, a variety star at the likes of Dublin’s Queen’s Theatre and later the Olympia.
One of his stage characters was a larger-than-life Dublin woman, who was incredibly funny.
‘I’d seen him perform as a kid and he was fantastic. This woman he’d played – I can’t remember her name – stuck with me. I was so pleased to meet Cecil. And surprised to discover he had a terrible stutter, particularly as on stage there was no sign of one. “Doctor Theatre cures everything,” he said to me.’
Sheridan gave the young waiter an insight into what makes an audience laugh. (And perhaps partly inspired Agnes Brown.) He got to see how Sheridan could take the nuances of a woman and create a character, but without playing her as outwardly feminine. And Brendan understood that a man playing a woman can get away with so much more than a female actress: there’s a licence to be cheeky that comes with drag – if done right. Cecil Sheridan had managed to get the line just right, offering a heightened, but believable woman. And Sheridan had a lovely, whimsical sense of humour.
‘He told me he was at the Metropole Ballroom in Dublin and went to the toilets where you had to put a penny in the slot. A guy coming out of a cubicle held it open for him so he got in for nothing. When he came out, the janitor said to Cecil, “I see you got a freebie there!” Cecil insisted on giving him the penny, telling him he would not like to get him into trouble if he were stocktaking for each motion. He told that story on stage and the place fell apart. And he explained the joke didn’t work just because it was risqué. He said it worked because people recognised the truth in it. I think Mrs Brown works because people recognise the essential truth in her.’
Yet, while Brendan was a Sheridan fan, the Saturday night star that shone brightest for him was Hal Roach, the Irish comedy legend whose catchphrase was, ‘Write it down.’
‘He was a genius. He stood, his left heel tucked into the arch of his right foot, his hand pulling on an invisible beard as if he were searching for the next story. He’d come out with surreal gags like: “Murphy found himself very late one night in London in the Underground subway station. He walked along to the escalator. And on the escalator it was written, ‘Dogs must be carried on the escalator.’ And he thought, ‘God, where am I going to find a dog at this hour of the night?’”
‘I watched and learnt and laughed and laughed. I would serve him a cup of coffee after his act and then I’d go home and do his whole stand-up routine for my mother, who would be in stitches.
‘One night, I worked up the courage and said to him, “Mr Roach, I want to be a comedian.”
‘“Son, there is no such thing as a comedian under thirty years of age.”
‘“Mr Roach, I think I am going to be the biggest comedian in Ireland before I’m twenty-five.”
‘“My God. I think I’m going to have one of my turns!”’
Brendan learned a great deal from Hal Roach, about comic timing, about movement and expression.
‘Look closely at Mrs Brown. Even Agnes Brown’s voice has a little bit of Hal in there, if you listen closely.’
While talking to Hal Roach, Brendan had articulated what had always been inside his head. He already knew he was funny. Other waiters constantly told him he was funny. But for the first time he had admitted he wanted to be a comedian. Brendan had had the thought in his head for some time. But he had never had the confidence to release it. He would have been laughed at, he felt. Now, though, here he was working with a man who’d had a career in the business.
But how to achieve his stated ambition? Brendan took his first step into the entertainment world a year later with a stint on ARD, Alternative Radio Dublin, where he appeared on a kids’ show, as Uncle Brendy – The Kiddies’ Friend. Brendan had read in the Dublin Herald how the radio station was looking for volunteers and had offered his services. Yet he was drawn to comedy, and was helped by a chance encounter with bearded Irish entertainer Brendan Grace.
Grace was hugely popular across the country, famous for his ‘Bottler’ act, where he’d dress up as a scampish schoolboy (echoes of Jimmy Krankie) and appear regularly at venues like the Drake Inn.
One night, the two Brendans got talking and the youngster agreed to go to work for the legend as his assistant, driving him around and making sure he was looked after. The young O’Carroll hoped greatness would rub off on him and he watched and learned and helped his comedy master with his scripts.
After a couple of years, the Sorcerer and his Apprentice parted, but not before Brendan reckoned he had learned enough to try his hand as a solo performer.
‘What I learned from Brendan Grace was if you tell the audience you’re a star, they’ll believe you. But you can’t go out half-hearted.’
This was Brendan playing the part. And when a Dublin-wide talent competition was held in the Drake Inn, Brendan entered as a stand-up comedian. Incredibly, he won the £100 prize. Just as importantly, he was now recognised in the community as a funny guy.
‘Brendan became a star that night,’ says Gerry Browne, who would later become Brendan’s partner, and who was working that night as a glass collector.
‘He went up there on stage and blew the audience away, telling them little stories about his life in Finglas, stuff everyone could identify with. It was like watching a young Billy Connolly. Brendan had that hall in stitches.’
Yet, although his mammy had told him he could fly, waiters don’t drop trays and become entertainers. Not when they’re from Finglas and financially bereft. Do they? And Maureen O’Carroll didn’t ever say, ‘Brendan, you really should be on the stage.’ Hers was a quiet encouragement, and he knew his mammy would always support whichever path he took.
But she wasn’t so quiet in other areas. Every so often arguments would break out, the fierceness of which could have necessitated negotiation by UN peacekeeping forces.
Once, Brendan took his mother to Quinn’s supermarket and he was in a hurry, ready to get off to a football match. Maureen went to get some shopping, saying she’d be five minutes at most. Twenty minutes later, no Mammy. So Brendan approached the security guards at the front of the store and told them his mother was inside, but she had no money in her purse. He added she had a mental condition and would most likely steal everything she could get her hands on. Could they just remove her safely? Maureen was thrown out, effin’ and blindin’ as she was bundled into the car.
Later that night, she was still irate, and still keeping up the argument until Brendan said, ‘I’m tellin’ you now, Ma. If you keep this up I’m going to steal your teeth.’
And she did. And he did. Before you could say ‘Steradent’, he had her false teeth in his hand. And he put them in his pocket and went out for the night.
But while Maureen O’Carroll and her son would often go at it hammer and tongs and niggle each other constantly, they laughed just as much. She loved the laughter he created. And she knew he adored her. Even if he stole the teeth from her mouth.
But what he also took from his mother was her mantra: never compromise. And grab life with both hands while you can. As a teenager, that already made sense to him. He’d lost his dad, one of his best friends in John Breen. And now the other . . .
‘Jimmy Matthews was killed in a car accident, aged eighteen, on the night of his engagement.’
Brendan adds, reflectively: ‘Never did the death of Jimmy or John scare me. I was never afraid of death. I always thought I was invincible.’
But in real life Brendan was less Superman and more Clark Kent, still a freelance waiter and hoping that work such as Aer Lingus Catering would take him on to bigger things. Such as the Irish Open Golf Championship.
‘I’d work at the golf for four days, for example, and get a month’s wages. One time I picked up a thousand-pound tip. And at the end of the stint I bought a car on the money I made.’
He had the car, and the girlfriend. And with the girlfriend came the girlfriend’s mother. Dolly Dowdall was another larger-than-life Dublin woman to whom Brendan became close. (He would later dedicate his novel, The Chisellers, to Dolly). Dolly Dowdall worked in the street markets, just like Agnes. Her husband was ill with a bad back, just like Agnes. And Dolly had to become the breadwinner. Dolly also lived for her family; she battled to make sure her five girls grew up to be fine young ladies. And Dolly would later be absorbed into the character of Agnes Brown, both funny and wicked.
But she had money problems. Or rather, she had a problem paying money back.
‘Dolly borrowed nine quid from a money-lender, to pay it back at a pound a week. But she got into difficulties. And after a couple of months, the debt, with compound interest, was over five hundred.
‘So I went along to see this loan shark, who was based in a Dublin pub. In an office off the side of the bar, the “secretary” said the guy I was looking for wasn’t in.
‘“I’ll wait.”
‘“But he could be out all day,” said the barmaid.
‘“Well, I’ll still wait.”’
And he did. He sat down and waited. And as he looked around he could see the office from the bar. And he waited. And he saw the secretary pick up the phone and speak very quietly.
Brendan realised there was an adjacent office.
‘I thought to myself, “He’s here!”
‘So I walked right through the office door, and up to the guy’s desk. And I slammed the debt books right on top of it. And I said to him, “You will charge no more money on this account. That’s the end of it.”’
And he slammed the books down again, just for added dramatic effect. And made his grand exit.
‘Except that I didn’t,’ he says, with a look of mock horror on his face.
‘I had worked up to this big moment and was so focused on being angry instead of walking out the door, I charged straight into a walk-in cupboard. And I slammed it behind me.
‘And now, here I was, standing in the dark in a cupboard. And then I had to walk back out again, and walk out the real office door.’
Brendan might have had to suffer a little ignominy, but Dolly Dowdall never again heard from the money-lender.
Yet, while he solved Dolly’s immediate problem, he was doing his best to pay the mortgage at home in Finglas, to make ends meet, working all the hours he could. He would finish waiting tables at seven o’clock and then start a cleaning job at nine.
‘I took a job working for Jeyes, the company that makes toilet products.’
He adds, grinning, ‘And here’s the thing: I love cleaning away. It’s quite weird. If I go into a supermarket in America and find myself in the detergent aisle, I’m salivating. But I loved the job. I made sure I was a great cleaner. In fact, I introduced a new cleaning system in that place and the bosses agreed to introduce it. It saved them a fortune.’
He has an explanation for the hard work, other than the satisfaction you can achieve from doing a job well.
‘Somewhere in my mind, I’m convinced that I’m lazy, that I’d rather be on the couch watching television. And because I know that, I work doubly hard to prove I’m not lazy.
‘So when I was in Jeyes I wanted to run the factory. If I see something, in any business, I try and sort out a problem.’
Meanwhile his relationship with Doreen was moving forward. Brendan says it had its own momentum. ‘We grew to be great friends. And when I joined a football club, Doreen got on with the other players’ girlfriends. It was all cosy, and everyone we knew seemed to be getting married all of a sudden. And before we knew what was happening, we were getting married too.’
Brendan, heavily prompted by his mother, went to see a priest to make his confession, with the idea that his soul would be scrubbed clean for the start of his new married life.
‘But instead I ended up getting into an argument with the priest. He’d asked me to confess how much I drank, and I told him I didn’t really drink much at all, which was true. But he insisted I was lying and I should confess all. I was fuming. And that was me done with confessing.’
The wedding itself wasn’t the wondrous day he’d have hoped for.
‘I remember thinking it didn’t feel like magic. But then, I couldn’t picture life without Doreen either. And it wasn’t that there was someone else in my life. She was the business.
‘I also remember panicking a bit, thinking, “What if this isn’t real love, it’s more a brother/sister love? And what if someone bumps into me in the street in five years’ time, and I suddenly fall in love . . .?”
‘But I reconciled myself and reminded myself that I had made a promise.’
Brendan and Doreen, both aged 19, announced their wedding and, on 18 July 1975, they walked down the aisle of St Canice’s Church in Finglas.
Brendan had told his mother that the Archbishop of Dublin would be joining the couple in Holy Matrimony. She laughed. This was of course another of Brendan’s wind-ups. Except that it wasn’t. The Archbishop did indeed perform the ceremony.
Maureen O’Carroll was delighted. And she would drop it into every conversation for months to come. However, his mammy wasn’t convinced the relationship would work out.
‘She felt it could go either way. My mother wasn’t sure if we were going through life at the same speed. She’d say, “Opportunity is a train that goes in a circle. And it keeps coming round. But it never stops. And the only way you can get on that train is to jump on it. But you can’t jump with a weight on your back. Whoever is with you will have to jump by themselves. And someday, whoever is with you will have to jump on that train.
‘“That’s the way it will happen, Brendan. I hope that Doreen will jump with you.”’
Would Doreen jump?