On paper it should not have worked but, somehow, a mockumentary about a group of twentysomething wasters “drinkin’, schmokin’ and fightin’” in a fictional Co Mayo town became one of Ireland’s biggest comedy hits. The way Chris Tordoff tells it, Hardy Bucks was a happy accident.
We meet at RTE, where the stubbled, mop-topped and soft-spoken 29-year-old is unrecognisable from his character Francis “the Viper” Higgins, the low-level drug dealer and thorn in the side of Eddie Durkan, the main Hardy Buck played by Martin Maloney.
“I get that a lot,” he smiles, his Yorkshire accent a far cry from the Viper’s harsh west-of-Ireland rasp. “And any time anyone does recognise me, they usually want me to ring their friend and shout abuse down the phone at them. But it’s swings and roundabouts; you might want a bit of a discount on a laptop or something. Martin, who plays Eddie, is much more recognisable and [it] works in his favour sometimes, because you might get some sweet deals.”
Tordoff and his co-writers and fellow Englishmen Maloney and Mike Cockayne made their comedic portrayal of small-town Ireland into a hit, spawning two series, a Christmas special, a movie in 2013 — and now a third series.
Tordoff and Maloney came up with the idea — which they agree was inspired by Canadian show Trailer Park Boys — around 2007, via a series of YouTube shorts filmed around Charlestown and Swinford, home of the fictional Castletown. “I filmed Martin just walking around town, looking at stuff, pointing at stuff, and just talking about it. Then we’d cut to a staged talking-head interview with all this other footage. It was really basic stuff, but we threw it on Bebo and people started watching it,” says Tordoff.
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“I was in [college in] Ballyfermot, but to keep the money coming in during the summer I had to work in McHale’s baling factory in Ballinrobe. After three months of that, I thought, ‘Shite,’” he says, chuckling. “I’ve gotta start [editing] that thing, because there’s other dreams out there.”
Like Maloney, Tordoff moved to Ireland in his early teens, relocating from Leeds to his mother’s native Swinford. “I was always coming over here on holiday, so characters and storytellers were always around,” he says about being inspired by his surroundings. “There was no telly in my great aunt’s cottage, and I found that hard to understand, coming from Leeds, because telly was what all our lives revolved around.”
It had not been the intention to make a third series, but the relative success of the film — which placed the cast in Poland during the 2012 European Championships — spurred RTE on to recommission it last year. The national broadcaster puts limitations on a show, but they have also gained a wider following.
“On the internet, we did exactly what we wanted — and it wasn’t to everyone’s taste, but we really liked it. That’s not to say the transition to TV hasn’t made us proud. It’s not necessarily a bad thing,” says Tordoff, who also directed the new series. “There’s definitely a censorship issue because, I mean, you couldn’t really say everything you want. We don’t want to swear just for the sake of it, but it’s not just the language.”
“Viewers on telly just expect a level of professionalism which just wasn’t there with us in the beginning — and it’s hard for us to come to terms with it,” he adds, laughing. “All you want to do is just please yourselves. I know that sounds greedy, but pleasing ourselves was probably the best thing we did, because we got fans out of that. So we’re pigs in the middle, but happy pigs. Pigs in shite.”
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For the latest series of Hardy Bucks, the three writers move things up a notch. The introduction of Susan Loughnane and Aoibheann McCaul as girlfriends has added a new dimension to the show, claims series producer Mike Cockayne. There are several celebrity cameos, including singer Brian Kennedy being booked for a festival and Ritchie Neville from boyband Five taking part in a sci-fi convention in a case of mistaken identity. There is also a Breaking Bad-style plot when the Viper gets entangled in a vaping craze that has hit Castletown.
“You’re sitting there writing things and come up with ideas that usually start, ‘Wouldn’t it be funny if . . .’,” says Cockayne, laughing. “The Viper puts on this big festival, Brian Kennedy is the only guy who agrees to play — and he ends up getting kidnapped. But he was an absolute star; he was so funny and totally up for it. I’d like to think none of it is cringeworthy and that everyone will think it’s funny. They were all up for taking the piss out of themselves anyway.”
Tordoff is adamant this new series will have more of the surreal humour that first informed their original videos — and which continues to inform the standalone Viper pieces he occasionally uploads to YouTube, such as his offhand commentary of a yacht race at the 2012 Olympics.
“We shot a lot of improv this time, but because you have to tell a story in a short space of time; it’s not forgiving like YouTube,” he says. “Someone who watches a YouTube video will just watch it; on telly, you have to try to catch someone who’s trying to change channel. We’d love to just puzzle people and have confusing elements in it, but it’s about compromise. We were a lot hungrier for this series, and what we filmed is the best we’ve filmed since the YouTube days.
“So as long as we can cram it with as much of that non-sequitur, weird, surreal stuff — as well as keeping the story ticking along and people interested — we’ll be on to a winner, I think.”
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There is an undoubted irony in three Englishmen — although Tordoff winces when I say that, as he identifies as Irish — nailing a show with such a distinctly Irish tone. “I think, for all of us, it’s that slight degree of separation that gives us that observation point,” says Cockayne. “If you’re brought up in an environment, it’s hard to see the wood for the trees in terms of what’s funny or what’s going on. But if you step into an environment you can spot all the little nuances and social tics and use of words much more easily. It’s all good, honest humour. We’re not taking the piss out of anybody, we’re just having fun.”
There is no plaque in Swinford just yet, but fans regularly tour locations from the series. The town, Tordoff reckons, is generally proud of being portrayed in such a way. “If we have offended anyone, no one has said anything really bad about it — although there was an old lady who rang into Midwest Radio who said she couldn’t sleep after watching it. How could you not sleep?” he wonders, laughing heartily. “There’s no plaque, but every establishment, pub, venue has always been, ‘Fire ahead, lads. You’re doing the town a great service.’ Everyone’s been supportive, which would probably be harder to get if you went outside of the west.”
Is there an audience for Hardy Bucks outside of Ireland? Are the Viper, Eddie Durkan, Buzz, Stateside, Frenchtoast, Salmon and the Boo destined only for cult glory? “I think it might be, yeah, although it seemed to have more of a resonance outside of Ireland when it was online,” he says.
“It’s colloquial and cultish, but so is Trailer Park Boys, and they come over here and have their biggest live-show audiences. I think, with every series now, we’re probably getting closer to one that will really work. The movie’s on Netflix, and episodes are more self-contained in this series, so I can see it being something that might travel.
“I might be wrong, but it was always baby steps. We didn’t know what we were doing and we were very green . . . Now, when people say, ‘I love the show, it’s great, keep doing what you’re doing and don’t let anybody tell you different,’ it’s really touching to hear that.
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“So I really am happy with where we are. We’re not real actors and we never really had any grand plan, other than to make ourselves laugh. So as long as we keep doing that, it should be all right.”
Hardy Bucks Ride Again begins on October 26 at 10.25pm on RTE2