When Jon Kenny began performing stand-up in the 1980s, Irish comedy was in a dark and dreary place. He remembered it as a time when people told “mother-in-law jokes” and not much else. “I was on a stand-up circuit that did not exist,” he would recall. “I was young and slightly insane. Here was me going around wearing TV sets around my head, riding pantomime horses. Once at a gig, I drove in on a Honda 50 … down the audience.”
Kenny, who has passed away at age 66, was both an anarchic comedian and a soulful presence on screen and stage. He is best known as one half of D’Unbelievables, alongside his friend and comedy soulmate Pat Shortt, and for a memorable cameo as a blustering television host in the Eurovision episode of Channel 4′s Father Ted.
He was also a stage actor of considerable renown. He received raves for his turn as Bull McCabe – that haunted avatar of Ireland’s obsession with land – in Shoestring Theatre Company’s acclaimed run of John B Keane’s The Field. Many actors have portrayed the character as a clenched fist of ancient resentments. Kenny, however, located a seam of sadness in Keane’s furious anti-hero. “There is a bit of redemption in us all, maybe there was some in The Bull,” he said.
[ Actor and comedian Jon Kenny dies aged 66Opens in new window ]
It is, of course, D’Unbelievables for which he will be best remembered. He and Shortt brought a riotous energy to their portrayal of rural archetypes as the suspicious garda, the over-bearing school principal and the shouty GAA coach. But there was fondness behind the satire – when he and Shortt and their families once went for a weekend away in Castlemartyr Co Cork (where Shortt at the time owned a pub), the first thing the comedians did upon arriving was to produce their hurleys and have an impromptu puck-around in the carpark of the holiday village. They might have poked fun at small-town Ireland of GAA dinner-dances and pub lock-ins, but they loved it dearly, too.
Father Ted introduced Kenny to an international audience. He had a small part as the manager of Craggy Island cinema - but it was as Jekyll and Hyde-esque Eurovision host Fred Rickwood that he seared himself into sitcom history. An incomprehensible mess off camera, as soon as the stage lights went down, Fred transformed into a super-smooth MC – a juxtaposition Kenny sold effortlessly.
Then, he’d been selling his offbeat humour all his life. He grew up in Bruff, Co Limerick and joined a band straight out of school. He would later become a member of Theatre Omnibus, an experimental mime and dance troupe formed in Limerick in 1983. Later, he threw himself into the comedy circuit – where his humour was sometimes considered beyond the realms of good taste. Often, venues where he had performed would receive a visit from the local priest, who’d caught wind of the anarchic funnyman who just passed through.
“It was fairly risqué, the priest was called in,” he would recall. He explained that a routine in which he impersonated an infant in the womb had scandalised people because it dealt with the messy business of childbirth – something of a taboo in 1980s Ireland.
Everything changed when he and Shortt started D’Unbelievables. Their ribald sketches reflected to the audience the surreal Ireland they knew from day-to-day life. The duo’s big break was an early performance on RTÉ's Late Late Show, where, playing bumbling rural gardaí, they rendered then host Gay Byrne speechless with laughter.
D’Unbelievables were a sensation but were forced to stop touring after Kenny was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which kept him away from the stage for two years. He had suffered further health issues recently and died on Friday, November 15th in hospital in Galway.
He never took success for granted and remained astonished by his achievements: “I don’t know how in the name of God I’m even here!,” he told RTÉ in April, “I’ve been bluffing all my life!”.
Kenny leaves behind a rich legacy as comedian and actor. He was an entertainer of immense gifts who always stayed humble. His humour was uniquely Irish in its warmth, its irreverence and its wisdom.
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