Rosenstock to bring Trump rallies, Gallaghers and Gift Grub favourites
Eilís Ryan
It’s not really possible for impressionist and comedian Mario Rosenstock to set out exactly what audiences are likely to witness when they attend his Saturday February 21 show at Mullingar Arts Centre.
But from the hints he’s giving, it’s going to be good. Garron Noone, Liam and Noel Gallagher; the new Oirish iteration of Pierce Brosnan; Paul Mescal; Graham Norton, Elton John are among the new characters he is introducing – but then there will be many of the old favourites as well – Miriam O’Callaghan, Michael Flatley, various politicians, Tommy Tiernan, Roy Keane, Jose Mourinho.
“It’s an updated version of the show I was doing a few months ago – but it’s constantly being updated, because basically the world is turning faster than we could ever possibly imagine,” he said in an interview with the Westmeath Examiner.
That rapidly-spinning world is in no small part due to the political turmoil that surrounds Donald Trump, and so a highlight of the show will be, for audiences, the moment they find themselves at a Trump rally – where instead of focusing on making America great again, they will be part of the call to make Mullingar great again.
“I go: ‘Mullingar has been in decline for years. It’s time to make Mullingar great again. We’re going to build a wall around Mullingar to keep the scum from Athlone and all these places out of Mullingar’,” he laughs.
He’s done his research; he has the local references: as Donald Trump, he will have the “fake news” of the Westmeath Examiner in his sights; he is also targeting the “radical left lunatics” in Midlands 103, and warning about the “infestation” of “lefties” that could arrive from neighbouring Meath.
But all that is just one element in an action-packed show of two 55-minutes halves, and he has a rapid-fire way of delivering the detail, listing the roles assigned to the characters who are to feature.
“I do Michael Flatley’s Riverdance musical, and I take two people up on stage and we create a Michael Flatley musical on stage. And at the end, I’m three Wolfe Tones – because the Wolfe Tones won’t go away: they keep coming back out of retirement. And I do a brand new Wolfe Tones song to end the show.
“I’m also the Gallagher brothers, Noel and Liam, so I’m Oasis on stage as well.
“There’s also a section where Miriam O’Callaghan does the entire history of Irish politics in the last 20 years.”
There are of course some Westmeath voices set to appear – Michael O’Leary and Niall Horan; and voices from the world of sport.
One other famous Westmeath voice that arises for discussion is that of Conor Moore – not because he is anyone Mario imitates, but because he is in the same game: “I’m jealous of Conor. He’s brilliant. Conor’s fantastic,” he says, adding that he is delighted with the success that Conor has been having.
“I’ve had him on my podcast twice and his range of voices is amazing and he does lots of stuff that I don’t do at all – he does all the Formula One people and all that and he’s deep into the golf. I might do two or three golf characters. He does about 50.
I’ve never done a Formula One character and he’s done about 20 of them.”
Mario’s interest in performing goes back to his early childhood: “When I was four or five, I started watching Sesame Street. And I noticed that they used to do puppets, and I noticed that they used to do little sketches,” he recalls. He then graduated to the Muppet Show.
“But then I was also interested in British sitcoms like Rising Damp, and then American sitcoms like The Larry Sanders Show and Cheers, and then, and then I discovered Saturday Night Live with people like Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi, and then later Will Ferrell. So they were always inspiring.
And also, Jim Carrey, I would say Jim Carrey has always been an inspiration to me. I love the way Jim Carrey can walk into a room which is really, really serious, and he can have them – within 30 seconds – that they’re all on the floor in bits.
“Robin Williams would have been another person like that, a person capable of improvising on his feet; I also loved the Monty Python crew, of course.”
Without prompting, he goes on to list the Irish shows and performers that influenced him: “Hall’s Pictorial Weekly was a great beginning for me when I was young, when I was 8, 9, 10 in the early ‘80s, and then Dermot Morgan doing Scrap Saturday was a great inspiration.
“And I love the comedy of David McSavage. He’s very edgy. He can be quite mad sometimes, but I really enjoy him as well. I think Irish people do really well when it comes to a comedian working with crowds.
Neil Delamere is fantastic at crowds work. He’s brilliant working with crowds. So I take my inspiration from everywhere.”
To do what he does as successfully as he does, Mario has to keep abreast of news and current affairs – and thus he listens to about three hours of podcasts a day. He has a long list of favourites.
“I would listen to a lot of the Goalhanger stuff. So I listen to ‘The rest is politics’; ‘The rest is history’. I used to listen to Eamon Dunphy’s podcast before he gave it up.
I listen to The Other Hand, by Chris Johns and Jim Power the economist. It’s a really good one.
And I listen to American podcasts as well for American current affairs – I’m big into American current affairs. And so I would listen to Meet the Press; Matt Cooper’s Path to Power; the Great American Podcast – and my own podcast, The Mario Rosenstock Podcast and things like that.”
His relationship with Ian Dempsey is a key part of the Rosenstock story: his daily Gift Grub segment on the Ian Dempsey Breakfast Show has been running for 26 years: “I write all my material, but myself and Ian Dempsey are a team in that Ian is my co-collaborator; he’s also my sounding board and he’s also my best audience.
So basically Ian is great at acting like an audience. Like he always goes ‘What would the audience love to see you doing?’ Yeah, yeah, and so he’s always been like that.”
Outside of performing, Mario, a father of two, enjoys chess and tennis. Chess he plays wherever he gets a game, including online; and tennis he plays two or three times a week.
Mario’s Mullingar gig tickets are moving along nicely, so don’t leave it long to buy! Tickets available at €42.50 plus €2 in fees from 044 9347777.