D’Unbelievables ‘madder than ever’ on sellout reunion tour

Date Published: {J}

Jon Kenny and Pat Shortt, the pair formerly and currently known as D’Unbelievables are enjoying a hearty breakfast in Griffin’s Tea Rooms in Galway city centre on a visit here to promote their national tour of One Hell of a Do, which is playing Leisureland from April 6-9.

Not that they need to promote it – the Galway gigs sold out, just like the rest of the tour, which has been running since January. An extra date was added and the tickets for that are almost gone too.

Until last January, it was 17 years since they last performed One Hell of a Do and two decades since the show got its first outing.

In fact, it’s been more than a decade since the two men last worked together and when they stopped touring, there were rumours of bad blood between them.

So what is the story? There isn’t one, they say.

There was a rumour when they stopped working together that they had fallen out, but that wasn’t true, says Pat. There “was no hatchet to bury” before they toured.

“Once we decided to do it, that’s what we decided to do,” says Jon. “Both of us are mature enough to know that even if we haven’t worked together in 10 years, you have to turn up and do your job and that’s the bottom line. We never have to worry about that; we are both very professional. . . God that sounds an awful thing to say,” he says, terrified that he might sound smug.

“We’d been asked to do things together by other people, including a play,” adds Pat. “I was coming to the end of a show and Jon was finishing up a tour and we thought “let’s do our own stuff”.

They are enjoying the revival of One Hell of a Do, the recreation of an ‘Irish wedding’ where they and the audience provide the entertainment.

“It seems even madder and sillier than it was before,” observes Jon.

“People want silliness,” says Pat. “It’s not that we’re going out to give it to them, we are just doing it for ourselves.”

“That’s true,” agrees Jon, “and people say ‘ye really seem to be enjoying yerselves.”

“It was an easy thing to pick up with an audience in front of us,” he adds, and Pat agrees. “Everything fell into place. Even the ad libbing. We know how far to push it and when to pull back.”

“Which was great, because we didn’t have to rehearse that much,” says Jon.

Although the show is an old one and they have left it largely alone, they do indulge in a little ad libbing.

“We have changed lines and characters are doing and saying different things, but that’s happening organically,” explains Jon.

Because the original show was never set in any special era, it hasn’t dated. The famous wedding sketch features all the caricatures and scenes that make it recognisably Irish and very funny, and the audience participation is still vital.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.