My Left Nut

Michael Patrick interview

Michael Patrick talks about how My Left Nut is based on his own life story.

My Left Nut was an award-winning stage play. What does the TV adaptation have in common with the play?

So the overall story is the same, but the play is based on my life story, and I grew up in the late 90s - so the play had humour about MSN and dial-up internet.

For the drama we wanted to make it more relevant to young people today, so it's set in the present day. We also got to extend some of the other plot lines, like my girlfriend. This was in the original draft of the play but we had to get it down to under an hour for the Edinburgh Fringe. The play was also a one-man show and I played all the characters on stage, including my mother, whereas the TV show has a full cast of amazing actors!

What challenges did you face adapting it for TV?

Well, firstly Oisin [co-writer Oisin Kearney] and I hadn't read many TV scripts before, so we didn't realise how many stage directions there should be! Oisin had worked on documentaries but not drama, and I had mostly worked as an actor for stage, but we were quickly put on the right path.

As the play is obviously a self-contained piece, the challenge came in making sure each of the three episodes has its own story to tell, and it wasn't just one story arbitrarily split up. Like any TV show, we had to make sure the first episode told a story and had an ending - with a play you have a captive audience, so we had to work hard on structuring the episodes so we could entice the audience back for the next one. It was challenging structuring the whole drama and capturing the audience for the first 30-minute episode.

It's such a personal story - how involved were you and Oisín with the development of the series?

It was daunting handing over such a personal story to other people, but we had a great team. We wrote the scripts ourselves, but beyond that we didn't have a massive amount of input.

I was working with the RSC during shooting so I wasn't on set as much as I wanted to be, but Oisin shadowed the director Paul Gay on set. We both learned a lot about the TV world. I trust Oisin and I have known him for years.

It was hard at times but we had to learn to step back, there are so many people involved and you need to let others show their vision too. I was scared handing over such a personal story. We both played a small role in the show - Oisin is one of the medical students and I'm the policeman taking Mick home.

Were you involved in the casting of Mick?

This was one thing that we weren't involved with at all. We had a great casting director, Carla Stronge, who cast the whole production. She did such a brilliant job. I am a too close to this and I wouldn't be truly objective. And Nathan, who plays Mick, is such a lovely sweet guy and I know he was so passionate about the project. We had a lot of phone calls beforehand so I could brief him on the back story. He's a brilliant actor and was incredibly sincere - he really cares about what he's doing.

What makes My Left Nut different to other dramas?

It's about my testicles..?! No... it's the comedy, the show really straddles the line between drama and comedy. We're very happy with how that's balanced. It's also the truth of it. Obviously it's not an exact reenactment of what happened in real life, but there are whole sections of dialogue which were lifted from real conversations with people in my life - and I think that really shines through. Sinéad sat down with my mam and had conversations about what happened. And it all started from a story I told Oisin in the pub about my giant testicle as a teenager...

What is at the heart of the story?

It's a modern story about Belfast and not about the troubles. There are authentic voices in the drama and we shot in Belfast, where a lot of the actors are from. It's a lovely look at a city which I don't think has been seen before. This sort of storyline hasn't been shown in pop culture before - one that combines death, health issues and comedy.

At the heart of it is a young man finally coming to terms with his father's death while going through his own health issues, not to mention the everyday troubles of being a teenager!

How important was it to you to have humour in the series?

From day one it has been comedy first! I grew up around a lot of laughter, and that's how we dealt with things. There have been some lovely moments in the drama where Sinéad Keenan, who plays my mother, is telling her son details about his father's death. It's a very moving scene, but at the same time she's trying to cheer him up and make jokes. Capturing that sense of humour was very important to us. When I had the larger testicle, I would try to make people laugh about it. I like to think we wrote a comedy about a serious story.

What should audiences expect?

There are amazing performances from the actors. They will laugh a lot and be touched by the warmth of the story - and there are moments of absolute teenage cringe as well.

One thing I'm very proud of is audiences will see how amazing my mother is (portrayed incredibly by Sinéad Keenan) and how great all my friends and family are. We were so happy with the news of it being turned into a BBC show. It's been a whirlwind since I sat in the pub with Oisin three or four years ago looking for ideas for one-man shows. He said, 'tell the story of your giant ball'. I told him no-one would want to hear that story. It seems I've been proven wrong.