It is both the simplicity and familiarity of Bernard Casey’s local gossip videos that makes them so hilarious. In the short clips, the comedian from Portmagee rants in a strong Kerry accent, all colloquialisms included, with a “false teeth sweet” tucked under his upper lip. Among the topics he explores are whiskey, the dole, Leaving Cert results, drugs and lotto winners. Exact replicas of these conversations happen in shops, pubs and post offices around the country every day.
It is both the simplicity and familiarity of Bernard Casey’s local gossip videos that makes them so hilarious. In the short clips, the comedian from Portmagee rants in a strong Kerry accent, all colloquialisms included, with a “false teeth sweet” tucked under his upper lip.
Among the topics he explores are whiskey, the dole, Leaving Cert results, drugs and lotto winners. Exact replicas of these conversations happen in shops, pubs and post offices around the country every day.
The inception of these videos is very novel, the idea sparked from a bag of jellies Bernard’s girlfriend Laura bought in an old-style sweet shop in Cobh one day.
“When I used to work in the shop in Portmagee I always put the teeth sweets in for the kids and I’d be messing,” explains Bernard.
The local gossip videos are never scripted, as Bernard says it is the flow of speech that is their appeal
“I’d have my mouth closed and they’d come in and go: ‘Can I have 10 penny sweets please?’ ‘Okay’, I’d say with the teeth hanging out. They’d be like: ‘Look, look, look’. Then I’d swallow it and I’d be like: ‘What, there’s nothing’.
“That day Laura bought the teeth, I put them in and I started talking to her. She was like: ‘Stop it, you’re such a weirdo’. But at the same time she said there was something unique about it.”
Bernard pulled out his phone, recorded himself doing a monologue about “the new Gard inside in town” and sent it to his friends. They were so impressed that they encouraged him to post it on social media. After some persuasion he did and of course it was an instant hit.
The local gossip videos are never scripted, as Bernard says it is the flow of speech that is their appeal. A general concept is always conjured up beforehand, but whatever comes out after that, comes out.
“Once you put in the teeth you go into character. Your palate changes and your jaw juts out.”
A right funny man
It is very hard to do Bernard’s humour justice in writing. “’Tis far from coffee we were reared, ha?” he quips as two Americanos are placed in front of us.
Sitting down with Irish Country Living, he constantly puts on different accents and changes his facial expressions to demonstrate the point he is making. At one stage of the interview he even describes the intricate differences between north and south Kerry accents – which are not intricate at all if you’re from the Kingdom, by all accounts.
Bernard Casey.
The local gossip videos are only one feather in Bernard’s comedy cap. He also makes other sketch videos, but it is stand-up that is actually the main element of his comedy career. At present, he is on the road with this Local Gossip Tour and in May will play his biggest show to date in the Everyman in Cork.
It was performing on stage as a teenager that initially drew Bernard to comedy. “The first thing I ever did was a youth club play at home. It was a sketch and we won the All-Ireland with it. It was about an old woman who thought she saw an alien,” says the comedian with a smile.
“They made a huge effort to try something different and push us outside our comfort zone. It was absolutely brilliant.
“You just get the interest from it and I found that the way I would be thinking and talking at times was very similar to how you would do a stand-up bit. I was kind of performing unbeknownst to myself.”
After school, Bernard studied history and geography in UCC and it was there he first gave stand-up comedy a go. Realising that this was an avenue he wanted to pursue, he went on to study acting in Colaiste Stiofáin Naofa and the Gaiety.
Last year was an exceptionally busy time for the 28-year-old. He qualified as a primary school teacher, having completed the Hibernian post-grad, and he and Laura also welcomed their baby daughter Rosie May into the world just before Christmas.
Although he does some subbing from time-to-time in schools, comedy is Bernard’s focus going forward, and he marries his two careers by doing acting workshops in schools.
Kingdom days, Kingdom ways
Bernard is undoubtedly a Kerryman, but lives in Cork, where he says there is a growing comedy scene. Despite his current location, much of his comedy is rooted in the Kingdom and Irish Country Living wants to know are people at home afraid to speak with him yet?
Every summer we had people from Dublin, Cork, England and America, so you were meeting all sorts of people your own age
“They would say: ‘Jesus Christ, watch what you say in front of this lad, you’ll be in a video.’ But they know I wouldn’t be saying any names. I wouldn’t do that. They would say it blaggarding.”
Portmagee was a great place to learn about people, says Bernard, and this has helped his comedy a lot. “It was fantastic growing up in Portmagee like. I think the biggest advantage we had over a lot of people our age was that we were a tourist village.
“Every summer we had people from Dublin, Cork, England and America, so you were meeting all sorts of people your own age. We were getting all sorts of perspectives on different things – different mannerisms and different ways of talking – what they found funny. In Portmagee as well, it’s a fishing village, there are great characters there too in general.”
Without doubt Kerry has been a huge influence on Bernard’s comedy career, but his growing popularity of late is proving to stretch far beyond the Kingdom.
Bernard Casey plays the Róisín Dubh in Galway on 8 February and Skippers in Castletownbere on 1 March. For a full list of 2019 gigs, see Facebook.com/bernardcaseycomedy.
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