Mario Rosenstock: Play at a Cork city school changed my life

It was called Rochelle House, located on the old Blackrock Road in Cork. Bizarrely, it had been a school for French girls up until the mid-1970s, after which it became a small boarding school for students of Ashton Comprehensive.

My brother René was sent first, and when word came back that he quite liked it there and was settling in well, the general feeling was that it would be a good fit for me too.

René and I were a lot alike, in that we had much the same sense of humour. For years, we used to do little skits, especially when he came home from Germany. He was very arty and creative, loved reading and cartoons, and I knew that if he was enjoying life in Cork, then the chances were strong that I’d love it too.

Plans were afoot to bring me down to see the school and to sit for an admission interview.

As René was in the school musical at the time, it was decided to coincide our visit with the show so we could watch it while there. So, down to Cork.

But first of all, a fashion update alert. This was the 1980s, and styles were rapidly changing. Graduating from sawn-off denim jackets and Larry Mullen-style spiked hair, I had transformed myself into… Sonny Crockett from Miami Vice.

A revolution was happening in television at the time, with shows like Hill Street Blues transforming the way people perceived TV. You could say it was the first hint of the great era of television programmes that we see today.

Miami Vice was magnificent in its unapologetic, over-the-top 1980s brashness. Created by Michael Mann, who would later go on to direct the movie Heat, it featured super cool tunes (check out Crockett and Tubbs driving to the tune of In The Air Tonight by Phil Collins) with magnificent wardrobes, drug cartels and sun-soaked Miami beaches.

Everybody wanted to be Sonny Crockett, and I pretty much thought I was him as I arrogantly strolled into this Cork boarding school in black cotton pants, blue T-shirt and a white linen jacket. Aged 14.

The boarding school itself was an idyllic Victorian building housing just 40 boys and 40 girls. It seemed to be lost in time.

As I came up the drive that first day, it was like a scene from a Jane Austen novel: sun blazing down, girls sitting on the lawn combing each other’s hair. There were accents from all over the world – Ireland, yes, but also America, Canada, the UK and Belgium. It was an odd place for its time.

I don’t know what they must have made of me. Naturally, any newcomer attracts a lot of curiosity, but because René was proving to be very popular, I must have piqued some extra interest. There was also a mystique about ‘yer man down from Dublin’. Of course, I thought I was cool as f**k.

While I was there, I went to see Mr Cinders, the school play in which René was starring. It was a musical retelling of Cinderella, set in 1920s England, and René played the title role of a servant who eventually becomes the prince. All ends happily.

As I was sitting in the theatre, I casually admired the stage and the lighting. This may have been a school play, but it was all very impressive. It looked professional. It looked real. I loved the way the room felt – the smell, the sense of anticipation before the beginning of a performance. I loved it all.

Yes, but it was also that he seemed to command attention from the moment he appeared on stage. He had presence.

Was it just me? No. I looked around the theatre and everybody else’s eyes were glued to him as well, particularly the girls. Then he began to sing. Game over. I looked around again. His brilliance had the whole place in the palm of his hand.

But hang on – I was supposed to be the cool one. I beg your f***ing pardon? Sonny Crockett has just arrived in Cork and you’re all looking at my dipshit little brother?

I was blown away by the whole experience, but it was more than René’s performance. I had honestly never felt anything like this before. This place – this darkened room where people go to watch people pretend to be other people and believe it – was like a magical space where you had licence to take on a new identity.

I had noticed at school that whenever I did impressions, people would momentarily believe I was that person. Now, here was an entire world I could step into and pretend to be anyone I wished.

The funny thing is, it’s usually very difficult to pinpoint a key moment in someone’s life, particularly your own. Change usually comes incrementally, not in one fell, dramatic swoop.

Life is not like a movie, our progress isn’t linear, yet, as much as I can be sure of anything, I know it was that day and that experience that made me decide what I wanted to do. I wanted to act.

I even remember swearing to myself that by the following year, I would be on that same stage.

Extracted from Gift Grub & Me - My Life In Comedy, by Mario Rosenstock. Published by Merrion Press, out now.