Foil, Arms & Hog

Written by: Si Hawkins
Published: Thursday 15th March 2018

This Saturday it's St Patrick's Day - the patron saint of big foam hats - so what better way to pre-empt that party than a chat with top Irish trio Foil, Arms & Hog, who have just kicked off a UK tour. But what are they touring, exactly?

"It's our ninth show, and it's called Oink," says one of Foil, Arms or Hog, via the miracles of electronic mail. "We do roughly two hours of sketches: one hour of new stuff and one hour of old favourites."

And what might those bits involve? "There's songs for the elderly, balaclava boutiques, wild apes settling their differences, motivational prison speakers, and other sketches that can't be as well described in two words but it doesn't make them less funny."

There are worse ways of bringing home the bacon (other porcine puns are available). Now back we trot to Dublin's southside, a good decade ago.

First gig?

In the living room of a friend of ours in Ranelagh in 2008. Around 10 people came. They brought snacks and were very supportive. I actually haven't thought about that in a while.

Favourite show, ever?

Our first show in Whelan's in 2011. Packed with friends, family and fans that had followed us from the beginning. Everything hit, it was crazy.

Worst gig?

A corporate we had last year, playing to 300 people in fancy dress. They were all up dancing to a Beatles cover band then abruptly told "okay, sit down, sit down - now we have some comedy." The distance from us to the audience could have been 10 metres (we call that the 'comedy moat') but it felt like 10 thousand.

Biggest argument?

Do you think a trio would survive this long if we argued? The only things we ever disagree on are jokes, and the beauty of it is all you need is a two-thirds majority.

Who's the most disagreeable person you've come across in the business?

Trying to get the hot scoop, eh? Another great part of being in a trio is you can complain to each other about someone, so there's no need to do it in public.

Is there one routine/gag you loved, that audiences inexplicably didn't?

The Chairheads: a sketch about a family of people with chairs for heads. We performed the sketch with chairs in front of our faces. Simple plot: Daughter chairface invites a human boy home, dad is upset. It went something like this:

Chair Daughter: Dad, this is Johnathon
Johnathon: Hi there Mr Peterson
Chair Dad: Jesus Christ! What the hell is a roundhead doin' in my house?
Chair Daughter: Dad! You can't use the R-word, its offensive. The politically correct term is a "Human Person with a Face Instead of Chair".
Chair Dad: "Human Person with a Face Instead of Chair"? That takes ages to say!
Chair Daughter: He's a good man: Johnathon went to college, dad. He was president of the law society.
Johnathon: (laughs) Well, no, I was chairperson...
Chair Dad: Oh you think that's funny?
Johnathon: No, I...
Chair Dad: Taking a job that was clearly meant for a real chairperson!! In my day the chairpeople got chairperson jobs!

And so on. We loved it. They rarely got on board.

What's your best insider travel tip, for gigging comics?

Don't drink. Unless you need to. And Travelodge. It's dirt cheap and everywhere, you'll need it.

The most memorable review, heckle or post-gig reaction?

We had a stinker of a review onetime from 2010 (before we had microphones). It started with "Do you think shouting is funny?" and didn't get more favourable.

And our very first heckle came two seconds into our very first time on stage. It was a very loud "ah just f*** off". Foil's first job after literally just saying our name was dealing with a heckle.

So he did. He simply and very nicely highlighted to the rest of the crowd: "well that was a pretty harsh thing to say... but we're just going to plough on if that's OK?" and then the whole crowd cheered and we won them over. Happy days.