“The scenes that are on-screen funny aren’t always the funniest ones for us to make.”
Irish TV has really taken off internationally in way that we have never really seen before.
Ireland-set shows like Normal People and Derry Girls have garnered worldwide success and acclaim, and right alongside them is Cork-set sit-com The Young Offenders.
With the imminent arrival of season three, we were lucky enough to sit down with some of the stars of the show, namely Alex Murphy (Conor), Chris Walley, (Jock), and their on-screen mother/guardian Hilary Rose (Mairéad).
Over the course of the chat we covered everything from some of their upcoming projects being affected by the lockdown, whether the rumours that the third season will be the show’s last are true, and how the actors have seen a change in the Irish TV and movie landscape since the recent rise of popularity of entertainment made in Ireland.
However, one of the highlights of the chat had to be the moments while they were filming the new season that were so funny that it actually had them ruining take after take on-set, because they couldn’t stop laughing while they were making it.
“It seems to be, usually, the funny scenes that are on-screen funny, they aren’t always the funniest ones for us to make,” Murphy tells Lovin. “Because we know there are going to be gags, or we know they’re going to be funny. But when it’s late in the day, and there are the small things that are going to be funny.
“Like at one point, PJ [Gallagher] says to me and Chris, ‘You know that little spark that goes off inside your head that tells you what to do?’, and I just couldn’t stop laughing because I looked over to the left and I saw a spark, which is an electrician on set. They’re called sparks, and I just keeping thinking ‘That little spark over there?’”
“We just couldn’t stop,” Walley agrees. “It was towards the end of the day as well and we had to get pulled aside and they were like ‘Cop on now!’ But that just makes it get worse and worse!”
“It is normally when PJ is on set that I find it hard to keep a straight face,” Rose states. “I remember in season two, when we were in the hospital and they were doing the bet about taking the care of the egg and all of that.”
“And PJ just started on one, he just started rambling on one. I had to hide myself in the group scene, I tucked myself in behind Demi [Isaac Oviawe] and I just could not stop laughing no matter what I tried, there were tears rolling down my face. And I looked over at Alex, and he kept doing this thing were at the end of the scene he walk into a chair, and it was just… That day was too much for me. You may as well have given me my P45 that day!”
Season Three of Young Offenders kicks off on Friday 24 July, airing on RTÉ One at 9.35pm and on BBC One at 9.30pm
