Back to Cork where it all started for Gift Grub 

Today FM’s radio mainstay Gift Grub, known for its spot-on parodies of celebrities, politicians, and public figures, will be marking its 25th anniversary in 2025, and Cork will be where the celebratory tour premieres.

Mario Rosenstock — the man behind the characters that make up the Gift Grub universe — says that is no accident. “It’s apposite that I’m starting in Cork, it’s kind of my way of saying ‘thanks for putting up with me for 25 years’. This was the first place I came to tour Gift Grub. At the time there was a big story in the news about a well-known Cork DJ, and as I got into every taxi in Cork, each taxi driver had a perfectly structured polished five minutes of comedy material about it — and each different from the other. I remember being blown away by the quality of the material. I did five nights in Cork, and I stayed up in the Hayfield Manor, which was another joy. That first Gift Grub tour was a real five-star Cork experience.”

The fact that Gift Grub is hitting the milestone of 25 years has caught Mario’s imagination.

“I was talking with somebody, she’s 37 and said ‘I started listening to you when I was 12, we’d been in the car on the way to school, and I got my knowledge of politics and current affairs through Gift Grub’ and I was saying ‘Are you serious? You mean your only knowledge of Bertie Ahern was that I did his mannerisms?’. She said that she knew he wasn’t exactly how I portrayed him, but that I was depicting a certain reality of him. I had to just laugh with her and think maybe there’s a whole lot of people out there now who have a gnarled worldview because of what I was doing!”

Mario continued on that theme to illustrate how much has changed in those 25 years.

“It’s not just 25 years. It’s the difference between someone being 15 and 40; the difference between somebody being 8 and 33; the difference between somebody being 40 and 65. In fact the first Gift Grub character, Bertie Ahern, was 47 when I started. 47 is nothing, he was a young man. I remember being in the Burlington Hotel the day Bertie was made Fianna Fáil leader, I went in with a friend because it was such a big news event. He was a separated man in holy Catholic Ireland, in 1994! A lot of people were saying things like ‘isn’t he too young’ and ‘he’s separated, that’s a bit of a problem’, but we were in the world of Tony Blair; the new breed of politician who hangs out with pop stars like Westlife boys, and the Oasis brothers. Bertie was very of the time, Bill Clinton was as well, as was Blair. There was that more branded politician, rock and roll politician. They were an antidote to Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and Brezhnev and those old people.”

His most famous Cork-based character of course is Roy Keane, and Mario notes that over the 25 years that has changed markedly.

“When I started Roy, there was no ‘Roy Keane’ really, there was this kind of maniacal, barbaric figure, the captain of Manchester United. Nobody knew what he sounded like because he didn’t do interviews. Someone might grab him for a second after a match and he’d go, ‘obviously at the end of the day’ and that kind of thing. There was nothing in that for comedy, but we threw in the idea of Bertie loving Man United and going over, to meet Alex Ferguson and Jaap Stam and all that. When performing Roy, I gave him a little chuckle, Ian (Dempsey— the co-creator of Gift Grub) said ‘the little chuckle thing works’, so I said ‘right let’s create a world for Roy.’ I gave him a brother called Johnson, he’s delighted for him to be the superstar on the pitch but absolutely mortified at his brother being on the radio. Then Saipan happened and I had to look at that. And now, 25 years later, he’s this sort of Grizzly Adams, hilarious Uncle Roy. We’re always saying in the office, imagine him trying to be a stand-up comedian, he’d die a death. The reason why he’s funny is because he’s Roy, not because he’s a comedian, but Roy knows that, he’s smart, you can see in his eyes how clever he is, but it is gas when he’s on TV and how they laugh at everything he says.”

Mario’s connection to Cork far exceeds the link to Roy.

“Cork — and The Cork Opera House — reminds me of where I started. I had a teacher in Ashton (where Mario was a boarding school student) and he was the first person that told me to consider taking acting and drama and performing more seriously. I was 15, playing Willie Loman in ‘Death Of A Salesman’, and I remember being taken with it. Someone saying something like that to me when I was that young was crucial, I remember just being addicted to it, that feeling of being on stage. I reckon I’ve done about 55 or 60 nights on The Opera House stage so this is where the opening night is going to be. You know, I have a lot of Cork characters, and I’m always developing more. Cork is where it all started for me. Even though I am from Waterford and I perform mainly in Dublin, Cork would be, in a sense, the home of Gift Grub, because Cork mixes all the things I love about humour. It’s a deeply politically informed place, but a big piss-take as well, nobody takes people down in the way Cork people do. That mix of satire and parody is something I love.”

Gift Grub Live 25 – Featuring Mario Rosenstock will be in the Cork Opera House on Friday, February 28, and Saturday, March 1, at 8pm. Tickets available at www.
corkoperahouse.ie or at the box office.