Tom Davis developing Irish comedies
- Tom Davis has revealed he's working on several screen projects that tap into his Irish heritage
- The King Gary star is working on stories about Knock Airport and the Ghost Boat of Belmullet
- Davis is also adapting dark Israeli comedy Killing Grandma and planning The Curse Series 2
Tom Davis has revealed that four of his current screen projects are comedies tapping into his Irish roots, including a potential second series of crime caper The Curse on Channel 4.
The King Gary star, whose maternal grandmother is from County Mayo in Ireland, told stand-up Jarlath Regan on his Irishman Abroad podcast, that Shiny Button, the production company he runs with writer-director James De Frond, have several projects that he and his long-time collaborator want to shoot across the Irish Sea.
They are currently writing a "Fargo-ish" comedy drama, a "transatlantic mystery between Ireland and America" based on the "Ghost Boat of Belmullet" Davis told Regan. The inspiration is the real-life case of an empty wooden houseboat that washed ashore at Drum beach near Belmullet in County Mayo in 2013 with an enigmatic message scrawled on the boat's ceiling.
Davis also revealed that they had invested in a film script about a priest, criminality and the unlikely airport near the village of Knock in Mayo, which was controversially built in 1986 to attract Roman Catholic pilgrims to the Knock Shrine. However, the production stalled because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Previously subject of the 2010 musical On A Wing And A Prayer and the comic Knock Song by folk singer Christy Moore, their "dark comedy about Knock Airport [now Ireland West Airport], all based loosely" remains an ongoing concern.
"I really want to take the cameras to Mayo and make something" explained Davis, who cited prolific Irish showrunner Sharon Horgan as an inspiration for his work ethic, as well as crediting Irish comic and The Curse actor Michael Smiley as someone who supported and advised him early on in his live comedy career following a series of bad gigs.
Since the pandemic, Shiny Button has made The Curse, a second series of King Gary and, as British Comedy Guide revealed in August, their first film, the Amazon Prime festive rom-com Your Christmas Or Mine?, written by Pappy's star Tom Parry.
"We're now in a position, a little bit stronger, where we could go back to [their Irish financiers]" said Davis, who has just finished filming Wonka, the Charlie And The Chocolate Factory prequel. So the Knock Airport film is "still something I'd love to do".
Interestingly though, another new project in Shiny Button's pipeline is ostensibly taking a swipe Amazon. The production company has bought the rights to adapt the macabre 2015 Israeli comedy series Killing Grandma, which they also want to shoot in Ireland.
"The Israeli version was about this old lady who's got this mass of land and she's got these abhorrent kids" Davis said. "It's so brilliant and we're trying to do an Irish version now. It's about Amazon trying to build on this plot of land outside Cork. The kids want to sell the land but the old lady doesn't want to sell it. They start bunching off together and alliances are made to kill her."
Last month, during a promotional round of interviews for The Curse, Davis spoke of his wish to make a second series of the Channel 4 heist comedy, in which he stars alongside People Just Do Nothing's Allan Mustafa, Steve Stamp and Hugo Chegwin, as well as Irish actor Emer Kenny. He told BBC Radio Scotland's Afternoon Show of his desire to expand the gangland milieu of 1980's London to include crime families from further afield.
"Touch wood, we can continue the journey we've started" he told presenter Grant Stott. "The links between Scottish, Irish and London crime families are really entwined ... I'm really fascinated with that world."
Elsewhere, after selling adaption rights to Netflix for his and Shiny Button's breakthrough show, Murder In Successville, which the streamer has reworked as Murderville, starring Arrested Development's Will Arnett, Davis told Steve Wright on his Radio 2 show that the Canadian film and television star "had taken another thing from him". But he neglected to add which project this referred to.