It’s appropriate that Michael Ryan is at his most animated when he is talking about the thrill of being on stage making people laugh.
He is one-half of Cork-based Hubcap Theatre’s comedy duo with Sean Kelleher, who are currently bringing the house down all over the country with their second play, Mary’s Hopes and Dreams, following on from their first hit show, The Parish.
“I’m never more alive than when I’m on stage,” Michael says, with a big wide smile before bursting into laughter. “You’re living on the edge; you’re thinking, ‘What’s my next line?’ or ‘Is the other actor going to feed me my cue?’ You’re constantly in and out of the danger zone; it’s scary but very exhilarating. That’s why I really focus on comedy because the feedback you get from an audience – it’s amazing – it enriches you. You feel the energy coming in from the audience and that’s why I do it.”
Contemporary take
As Mark Twain famously said, “Write what you know.” And that’s what the pair strive to do, using the characters they both grew up with on their family farms and the language of the country in Whitechurch, Co Cork, as the basis for their contemporary take on rural Ireland. It’s something both men believe is lacking in the theatre world at present, with little material relating to country people or their lives.
“I think both of us are very naturally drawn to writing about what we know, and the characters you have in any rural community, they are so rich. We’re tapping into that,” explains Michael.
“We wanted to write plays that we would like to see on stage ourselves. That’s the way we approach writing, and as well as that, a lot of the modern plays we found were slow, and there wasn’t much craic in them, or they were taking themselves too seriously.”
The roots of Hubcap Theatre can be traced back to 2016, when at 50, Michael took a big gamble to leave his logistics management job to study theatre studies in UCC for three years. When he graduated in 2019, Michael decided he would have to make his own work, and who better to partner with than his best friend, Sean.
“It became fairly clear that I needed to start my own theatre company, and the obvious choice then was to work with Sean, so we just started writing – doing comedy sketches [on social media] and developing characters.
“Before we knew it, we sat down to write a play, and that was when we came up with The Parish and then booked venues and started really going for it,” recalls Michael.
“We were delighted [with the reception]. We played over 70 venues all over the country. We like to say we bring the theatre to the people, so we played in a lot of community halls, golf clubs, hotels, and function rooms, as well as the arts centres and theatres, both small and big. It’s been building all the time.”
In reality though, the pair had been entertaining audiences since their early teens, and drama has been constant since they were messing about doing Monty Python sketches with Macra na Tuaite, now known as Foróige.
Sean recalls,“My first time on stage was with Michael at the age of 14. We played The Ugly Sisters in a local panto,” a production that the duo incidentally also helped to write. “We both got the acting bug and started doing plays and sketches with the local Macra club.
“It was a great training ground for the likes of us,” agrees Michael, who says that two professional actors emerged from that club, himself and Denis Conway. Later on, the duo helped to set up the Blue Hat Productions drama group and were heavily involved in their productions, many of which travelled on the amateur circuit.
Sean Kelleher and Michael Ryan as Mary and Mary in a scene from their new play, Mary's Hopes and Dreams.
“We played many of the great comedy duos in plays like The Odd Couple by Neil Simon and The Lonesome West by Martin McDonagh. We kept being cast opposite each other. There seems to be a special chemistry between us on stage. We instinctively know what the other is thinking,” says Sean.
He combines his part-time role with Hubcap with his job as a service engineer. Michael is full-time with Hubcap, which gives him time to work on producing and marketing. He also works as a freelance actor and voiceover artist.
A scene from The Cattle Dealer song video, which has garnered thousands of views on social media.
New play
The success of The Parish has meant the comedy duo hit the ground running with their second play, Mary’s Hopes and Dreams, recently playing at the Fit-Up Theatre Festival in rural Cork.
The pair will be in Cork Arts Centre from March 10-14, with many dates booked countrywide right up to the summer. They hope that 2026 will be a “breakout year” for them, and they are working to get dates in one of the big Dublin theatres.
While Michael jokes that they are all about “making a show in a bag” that will travel, they have upped the production values with their new show, introducing a large screen for them to come in and out playing different characters. Everyone from the cattle dealer bidding at the mart to the parish hall chairperson and the greyhound trainer make an appearance.
At the heart of what they do is entertaining audiences and giving them a good night out. “When someone comes to see our plays, it’s important that we bring a bit of joy to people’s lives,” underlines Sean. “Life is hard, and people need a good laugh, a bit of escapism. But there is a subtle message in our plays. We tell life-affirming stories about ordinary people doing extraordinary things.
Hubcap Theatre's Michael Ryan and Sean Kelleher in scene from The Cattle Dealer song video, which has garnered thousands of views on social media.
“Like in Mary’s Hopes and Dreams, the two main characters, Mary and Mary, have a mantra: “I’m an independent woman. I can achieve all my hopes and dreams,” Sean says.
“It’s a real fun story. “The 80s popstar is my favourite character – Simon De La Soul – who comes out singing,” remarks Michael. “With this play, we added in a lot of slapstick comedy, singing and dancing. We actually wrote some songs for it. One is the Cattle Dealer Song that we rap live,” he adds.
Both men fervently believe they are filling a void that is lacking in rural Ireland, where there are fewer and fewer social outlets, something they believe underlines the importance of the local drama group for those who can’t play or don’t have any interest in sport.
“People are aching for live entertainment and social interaction. What we love is going to a place where they get all the neighbours together into a hall for that kind of communal experience, which is something theatre is very good at,” enthuses Michael. “If you can get a community together to laugh together and share an experience, that’s a powerful thing. If that’s all we do, it’s worthwhile.
So how do the pair come down from the high of a manic performance that Michael says leaves them in a “bog of sweat”? It can be difficult, he admits, but the fact they are normally travelling to and from gigs helps. “Usually, we have a Spotify playlist that we turn on of 80s and 90s music, and we have a big long singsong all the way home,” he says with a chuckle. “Madness, the Stone Roses and all sorts help bring us back to earth.”
See hubcaptheatre.ie
It’s appropriate that Michael Ryan is at his most animated when he is talking about the thrill of being on stage making people laugh.
He is one-half of Cork-based Hubcap Theatre’s comedy duo with Sean Kelleher, who are currently bringing the house down all over the country with their second play, Mary’s Hopes and Dreams, following on from their first hit show, The Parish.
“I’m never more alive than when I’m on stage,” Michael says, with a big wide smile before bursting into laughter. “You’re living on the edge; you’re thinking, ‘What’s my next line?’ or ‘Is the other actor going to feed me my cue?’ You’re constantly in and out of the danger zone; it’s scary but very exhilarating. That’s why I really focus on comedy because the feedback you get from an audience – it’s amazing – it enriches you. You feel the energy coming in from the audience and that’s why I do it.”
Contemporary take
As Mark Twain famously said, “Write what you know.” And that’s what the pair strive to do, using the characters they both grew up with on their family farms and the language of the country in Whitechurch, Co Cork, as the basis for their contemporary take on rural Ireland. It’s something both men believe is lacking in the theatre world at present, with little material relating to country people or their lives.
“I think both of us are very naturally drawn to writing about what we know, and the characters you have in any rural community, they are so rich. We’re tapping into that,” explains Michael.
“We wanted to write plays that we would like to see on stage ourselves. That’s the way we approach writing, and as well as that, a lot of the modern plays we found were slow, and there wasn’t much craic in them, or they were taking themselves too seriously.”
The roots of Hubcap Theatre can be traced back to 2016, when at 50, Michael took a big gamble to leave his logistics management job to study theatre studies in UCC for three years. When he graduated in 2019, Michael decided he would have to make his own work, and who better to partner with than his best friend, Sean.
“It became fairly clear that I needed to start my own theatre company, and the obvious choice then was to work with Sean, so we just started writing – doing comedy sketches [on social media] and developing characters.
“Before we knew it, we sat down to write a play, and that was when we came up with The Parish and then booked venues and started really going for it,” recalls Michael.
“We were delighted [with the reception]. We played over 70 venues all over the country. We like to say we bring the theatre to the people, so we played in a lot of community halls, golf clubs, hotels, and function rooms, as well as the arts centres and theatres, both small and big. It’s been building all the time.”
In reality though, the pair had been entertaining audiences since their early teens, and drama has been constant since they were messing about doing Monty Python sketches with Macra na Tuaite, now known as Foróige.
Sean recalls,“My first time on stage was with Michael at the age of 14. We played The Ugly Sisters in a local panto,” a production that the duo incidentally also helped to write. “We both got the acting bug and started doing plays and sketches with the local Macra club.
“It was a great training ground for the likes of us,” agrees Michael, who says that two professional actors emerged from that club, himself and Denis Conway. Later on, the duo helped to set up the Blue Hat Productions drama group and were heavily involved in their productions, many of which travelled on the amateur circuit.
Sean Kelleher and Michael Ryan as Mary and Mary in a scene from their new play, Mary's Hopes and Dreams.
“We played many of the great comedy duos in plays like The Odd Couple by Neil Simon and The Lonesome West by Martin McDonagh. We kept being cast opposite each other. There seems to be a special chemistry between us on stage. We instinctively know what the other is thinking,” says Sean.
He combines his part-time role with Hubcap with his job as a service engineer. Michael is full-time with Hubcap, which gives him time to work on producing and marketing. He also works as a freelance actor and voiceover artist.
A scene from The Cattle Dealer song video, which has garnered thousands of views on social media.
New play
The success of The Parish has meant the comedy duo hit the ground running with their second play, Mary’s Hopes and Dreams, recently playing at the Fit-Up Theatre Festival in rural Cork.
The pair will be in Cork Arts Centre from March 10-14, with many dates booked countrywide right up to the summer. They hope that 2026 will be a “breakout year” for them, and they are working to get dates in one of the big Dublin theatres.
While Michael jokes that they are all about “making a show in a bag” that will travel, they have upped the production values with their new show, introducing a large screen for them to come in and out playing different characters. Everyone from the cattle dealer bidding at the mart to the parish hall chairperson and the greyhound trainer make an appearance.
At the heart of what they do is entertaining audiences and giving them a good night out. “When someone comes to see our plays, it’s important that we bring a bit of joy to people’s lives,” underlines Sean. “Life is hard, and people need a good laugh, a bit of escapism. But there is a subtle message in our plays. We tell life-affirming stories about ordinary people doing extraordinary things.
Hubcap Theatre's Michael Ryan and Sean Kelleher in scene from The Cattle Dealer song video, which has garnered thousands of views on social media.
“Like in Mary’s Hopes and Dreams, the two main characters, Mary and Mary, have a mantra: “I’m an independent woman. I can achieve all my hopes and dreams,” Sean says.
“It’s a real fun story. “The 80s popstar is my favourite character – Simon De La Soul – who comes out singing,” remarks Michael. “With this play, we added in a lot of slapstick comedy, singing and dancing. We actually wrote some songs for it. One is the Cattle Dealer Song that we rap live,” he adds.
Both men fervently believe they are filling a void that is lacking in rural Ireland, where there are fewer and fewer social outlets, something they believe underlines the importance of the local drama group for those who can’t play or don’t have any interest in sport.
“People are aching for live entertainment and social interaction. What we love is going to a place where they get all the neighbours together into a hall for that kind of communal experience, which is something theatre is very good at,” enthuses Michael. “If you can get a community together to laugh together and share an experience, that’s a powerful thing. If that’s all we do, it’s worthwhile.
So how do the pair come down from the high of a manic performance that Michael says leaves them in a “bog of sweat”? It can be difficult, he admits, but the fact they are normally travelling to and from gigs helps. “Usually, we have a Spotify playlist that we turn on of 80s and 90s music, and we have a big long singsong all the way home,” he says with a chuckle. “Madness, the Stone Roses and all sorts help bring us back to earth.”
See hubcaptheatre.ie
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