Father Ted: 30 years of comic joy

Some things that come your way are so engaging, they are automatically memorable, no effort required.  As with most memory-related issues, this is probably a stronger phenomenon with those of, errr, fewer years on the clock:  at a time where nobody could readily muster a tape recorder (and long before video), we’d all turn up at school reciting, word-perfect[1], the best lines of complete dialogue from the previous day’s Round the Horn, Monty Python and Sorry I’ll Read That Again.  And I can still give The Glidd of Glood (albeit that masterpiece is now available online now – but I’ve always been able to since first broadcast, long before … etc etc).

Topping the charts, so far as I am concerned, is Father Ted.  So many extraordinary set-piece gags, many of them just a couple of seconds long [You let Dougal do a funeral?!], strung together in perfect half-hours strings of pure pearls.  And now it’s been 30 years …  scarcely seems possible.  Three short series, one superb Xmas Special; just 25 episodes.  And then Dermot Morgan dropped dead, 24 hours after filming the last one.  That’s heavy stuff, as comedy goes.

A decade or so ago, business took me for a sustained period to Dublin.  To my delight, in the office where I was consulting, of a quiet moment[2] or in the staff canteen during lengthy ad hoc mid-morning breaks[3], someone would launch an apposite Father Ted line, and everyone would gleefully chorus the script that followed.  Happily, I was able to join in.  Taking care not to regale them with my attempt at an Oirish accent … [4]  

Your nominations, please, for best Father Ted one-liner or five-second clip.  Here’s a good one for starters.

ND

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[1]  At least that’s how I, *ahem*, remember it …

[2]  There were, just occasionally, quiet moments.  Mostly, it was uproarious.  A remarkable “working” environment – highly enjoyable & something of a career highlight in its unique way.

[3]  Over the massive rock cakes they would all eat.  “Mid-morning” pretty much started at 10:00. 

[4]  Unless the occasion called for the Cork accent, as some sketches do.  Dubliners (including Ted himself: A Song for Europe) affect not to be able to understand it, and they don’t mind a bit of mockery in that direction.

PS: I can’t resist one more story.  The department held a quiz night in a big upstairs room in one of those rickety pubs you get, even in the smarter reaches of Dublin.  Beer flowed, the craic was amazing.  Spot prizes were given throughout the proceedings, and one of these saw a likely lad summoned to the front to receive a smart little box.  This he ceremonially opened before the assembled host (senior management present), and exclaimed in disgust: Aaah, shoite! Feckin’ commmpany cofflinks!  As they say in those parts, you Brits think Father Ted is comedy, but actually it’s a documentary.