AN uncharacteristic look of regret almost one of deep longing passes across the face of actress, Pauline McLynn: "It's a shame a real shame we're not doing Scrap Saturday at the moment, with all the crazy stuff going on in politics like Albert court case and Dunnes Stores as Santa - it would be brilliant. Mind you, the way thing are going, there would be hardly, any politicians left who would speak to us.
A few days after being awarded Best Comedy Actress in a Channel 4 series for her portrayal of Mrs Doyle in the vaguely subversive comedy series Father Ted. McLynn says she is delighted to have won. Like an Olympic champion expected to travel forever with the medal, she is prepared for the "show me" request and says: "I don't have it with me. I did win it. Maybe it was a dream."
Pleased, but determined to joke about it, she begins to analyse it with mock gravity: "I think I got it for not being as old as everyone thought I was. Mrs Doyle is somewhere between 55 and 75. When my father was introduced to some people in the west as being Mrs Doyle's father, they were surprised he was still able to work as they imagined he would have to be about 90." She is funny, lively and normal, "completely normal", she says helpfully.
I've never been traumatised or mad. I've always been a happy person. I knit. I'm not ambitious. I'm not at all ambitious. I've never wanted to play the Duchess of Malti or Lady Macbeth. I'd just like if people spelt my name right, I keep being given a G I don't want."
Sitting in a Dublin hotel haying just arrived from the weekend party in Kilkenny which had brought her back from London, she is accompanied by her current home, a green bag. "I am now madly in love, I have been for about four months," she says. The individual involved is Richard Cook, founder of the Bickerstaffe Theatre company, that's Cook - without an e.
Smaller, more compact than expected, and far less zany, she has a small lace with clear, pale skin and a floppy wedge of dark brown hair, currently "some shades darker than my own mousy colour". Certainly not as ancient as Mrs Doyle, she has neat, pointed features and could be anywhere be tween 25 and 40 but is in fact 34. Her appearance is an advantage and she knows it. I'm lucky. I'm not pretty so I can't be type cast as easily. Not too young and not too old." A mobile, pliable face, she speaks in a light girlish voice, only occasionally lapsing into funny accents. She is pretty in an efficient, unfussy way rather like a clever solicitor or a college tutor, except that she still carries her mobile phone with a likeable awkwardness.
Dressed in black, she wears sensible leather shoes and her bright green socks, as most of the interview: The only quasi glamorous touch is provided by a full length, black fur coat. A fur coat? She calms me down. "It's only made of dead teddy bears."
What? Dead toy teddy bears, happy toy teddy bears who just wanted to change their life.
Unlike many actors she does not affect the role of tortured artist. "No there is nothing tortured about me, aside from an obsession with spelling, born of having been mis spelt once too often. As expected she sees herself as an actress, not a comedian. McLynn's theatre CV is impressive including roles in Gate Theatre productions of The School for Scandal, Absurd Person Singular and The Double Dealer as well as appearing in Hugh Leonard's Chamber Music, Antigone, Yerma, Habert Murray's Widow and The Trojan Women at the Abbey. Her style of acting is frenetic, often over the top and she is ideal for Restoration comedy.
Yet because she has already compiled such an impressively comic repertoire, it is too easy to overlook the quality of performances such as the three roles she played - Shitty Meg, William Faddy and Dagby in Rough Magic's excellent production of Timberlake Wertenbaker's extremely demanding Our Country's Good. McLynn is a versatile working actress, far more than a clever comic - although she certainly is a good comic. She is also shrewder, alert to the cliches of theatre.
"I'm always a bit nervous when I hear people saying that comedy depends on timing. All the great timing in the world doesn't mean a thing if you're not funny." Father Ted was not exactly welcomed with open arms in the beginning.
HAVING auditioned for the part of Mrs Doyle by reading to a video camera, "I was very nervous. In the early episodes, I tended to come in too quick, and my lines got lost. It's funny, you can come in too late with good effect, but coming in too early is always a mistake."
Describing Father Ted as "a cartoon with people in it", McLynn maintains the show is having gentle fun with the church. "Here is Father Ted a man who knows he is surrounded by crazy people." Far from exploiting the new vulnerability of the church," she says. "I think we are making it that bit easier for priests to be seen as ordinary human beings." Both of the writers, Graham Mathews and Arthur Linehan, are based in London. "I was a bit surprised when I began noticing that people had thought RTE had turned down the series it was never offered it, because the lads were in London".
Father Ted had an immediate impact in Ireland. RTE's sitcom Upwardly Mobile began afterwards. For McLynn the show has meant fame and also London has become home. "I live with my brother and his family. I'm the mad aunt in the basement."
All of the indoor scenes are shot in London before a live audience, "we were criticised for having canned laughter, but the audiences have always been live". The outdoor shots are done on location in Co Clare where she says it is always freezing when we are working. "It is as if there has to be a gale blowing". The first thing that struck her about the show was the scripts. "They are absolutely hilarious." Originally written as a one off, it instead became a series. While the character of Father Ted appears to be a doomed Walter Mittyish schemer living in his own mad universe, it is Mrs Doyle, who tends the three priests, who is the true power figure.
"She call the shots," says McLynn, narrowing her eyes. "Mrs Doyle decides whether they get their cups of tea or not. It is fatal to get on her wrong side. She is committed but she is no pushover." Tea is central to the show. Not having previously considered Mrs Doyle as a power broker, my questions cease and McLynn provides a detailed account of the make up which goes into creating Mrs Doyle who sports sideburns and a tasteful moustache.
"We wanted to stick a big hair into her mole, and we took a bristle from a sweeping brush but it kept falling out. That's not to say it won't grow, the hair I mean, as the mole gets bigger." That sad expression of regret again clouds her face, "sometimes when I am made up like Mrs Doyle, when I am Mrs Doy, I find myself wondering what those nice, young actors like Ardal O Hanlon are thinking when they look at Mrs Doyle's face".
Being presented with "my piece of plastic" - her phrase for her award - is an interesting bench mark in a career which has already meant 13 years of regular work - but I've kept up the knitting, just in case." In 1993, she appeared in five productions in nine months.
It all began with Players at Trinity College. I think I joined Players about a minute after I arrived at college - it could have been a couple of weeks - but until third year I was involved in set building and worked as a stage manager." Her first meeting with Lynne Parker, who has since established herself as possibly Ireland's most consistently exciting director, was not promising.
"We hated each other on sight," recalls McLynn with the matter of factness of an eager witness giving evidence in court. She thought I was awful." Luckily some time later the laconic Parker was present when McLynn told a dirty joke.
"I could see her thinking that maybe I was worth giving a second chance to. McLynn's second chances would come after Martin Murphy cast her as Andromache in a college production of The Trojan Women. "That was the thing that got me going - if have three people to thank they are Martin Lynne and Gerry Stembridge." In the course of the conversation, Stembridge whose film Guiltrip she appeared in emerges as a major influence on McLynn. His influence and, of course, her luck in being part of a remarkable theatre generation which gathered at Trinity in the early 1980s.
But before Players, there was the Convent of Mercy in Galway city where she learned to knit. I was born in Sligo, but moved to Galway when I was about six months old. And the nuns had their hands on me for years. I have happy memories of school. The family lived near the Army barracks. "I have two brothers, my father is a motor factor travelling all over the west.
There was no act in tradition in the family. But my mother did a history of art course at the tech which made me decide to do it at college." Part of Mrs McLynn's course involved casting a fibre glass, female torso. "It was left soaking in the bath for about three months - I can't honestly remember having a bath at the time - but every time we went into the bathroom we scrubbed the thing, we had to use a suede brush to cast the cast off The torso was eventually removed from the bath. It seems impertinent to inquire about Mrs McLynn's exam results.
From the Convent of Mercy, McLynn moved her knitting skills on to Trinity College to read English and history of art.
"I always liked English but I was surprised found it so difficult to critically assess texts and write about them."
Acting is her job, not her life. "I like my work, I love it. But I don't live to work. I am far more interested in living." Working in television has put her in contact with a more business like set of people than she would expect to meet in theatre. "Television is more involved with technical things, I suppose. I like TV and would like to do more films." The current wave of Irish stand up comics has impressed her and yet while she enjoys comedy, she has no desire to become a stand up. "I can't begin to imagine how difficult it must be." Nor does - she appear overly worried as to the chances - of Mrs Doyle dominating her life.
THEATRE should continue to exist for her outside Father Ted Crilly. A role she particularly enjoyed was Jenny in Michael Harding's Hubert Murray's Widow at the Peacock. "I loved it. It's a great part. I had the chance to make them laugh in the first part and to make them cry in the second." She played Lady Frothe in a colourful Gate production of The Double Dealer, yet her, memory of it is dominated by Jonathan Miller in action.
"It was wonderful, he is so inventive. I think he wanted to play my part. What a mind, very restless. He seems to, have about five extremely intelligent, complicated ideas running through it at the same time. He was tempted to play the part of the husband, but he was working on something else at the same time, and had to go back to London during rehearsals. Otherwise, he'd had done it. I'm sure."
The little green suit case has replaced her Dublin home in Cabra. "I haven't seen the place for... I have a lodger. When I do get there I sleep on the bunk beds. I'm a great gardener, I have a sort of cottage garden, with all plants native to the area."
Although she is trying to conceal it, she admits to being apprehensive about her award. "I haven't got it back yet, they're engraving my name on it. I hope they spell it right." And she was gone back to London to rehearse the Father Ted Christmas special which will be filmed this weekend.
