"I don't think that anyone enjoyed the show as much as Davy"
Little Richie was so scared when the fearsome GAA star came to see comedy
PINT-SIZED comic actor Richie Hayes will never forget the night he performed the role of legendary hurling boss Davy Fitzgerald in front of the fearsome GAA personality. Hayes, who is also a contestant in RTE's The Voice of Ireland, does a side-splittingly funny impression of the GAA giant in hit show, The All Star Wars.
When the comedy, which parodies the world of club and county hurling, opened in Ennis, word came through to Richie and the cast that Clare hurling legend and former Decies chief Fitzgerald was in the audience.
"Richie nearly had a stroke," cowriter and actor Kevin McCormack laughs, and Hayes nods in agreement.
"Davy's a serious individual.We see him on the sideline, eyes bulging out of his head and the veins sticking out in his neck. He's just such a passionate, emotional person.We didn't know how he was going to react to his portrayal in our show."
Richie admitted it was a nerve racking experience going out to perform in front of Fitzgerald that night. "Kevin had heard from people that Davey wouldn't take this well at all and that he doesn't do jokes," he says.
But as Richie brought the house down with his hilarious impressions of Fitzgerald, the GAA icon was spotted rolling around in his seat with laughter. "The truth is, I don't think anybody in the country enjoyed the show as much as Davy; he loved it," Hayes says.
"We knew where he was sitting and we were watching him in his seat and he was rocking with laughter. He came backstage afterwards and said, 'Where's that little f**ker?' He shook my hand and said, 'You obviously have someone on the inside. I couldn't stop laughing because you had my mannerisms off to a T. It was very strange looking at someone taking you off like that."
Hayes, who is a native of Waterford, watched Fitzgerald in action on a popular YouTube clip. "Richie's character in the Davy persona gives the most fantastic dressing room pep talk to his team," Kevin reveals.
"People in the audience get so riled up as they are drawn into the plot and the whole story. I don't think I've ever been involved in a production where we've got a standing ovation from an audience 15 minutes before the show finishes."
You don't have to be a GAA fan to enjoy this two-hour feast of comedy and music, which has packed in the crowds around the country, but teams have been turning out to watch it on "bonding nights." The action centres around the story of Junior B hurler Hugh Cullen. Hugh is mistaken as a blood relation of Cuchulainn and whisked off to save the future of hurling from the indomitable King Henry of the Shefflin Order, who is on the verge of winning his 1,000 All Ireland victory in a row.
"People identify with the characters because they recognise them from their own community," Kevin says.
"Characters, like the guy who comes out to hang the nets and put out the cones, are in every parish in the country.They are people who feel that the GAA is an organisation that would crumble if they're not there. This show parodies them, but there is no offence to anybody."
Richie Hayes, meanwhile, will also be starring in The Voice of Ireland after being chosen by singer Brian Kennedy. In a strange twist, his father, Dick, also tried out on the same show but didn't get picked.
"Dad was disappointed, but he wasn't distraught because he's been around the block a few times," Richie says. "It's an eventful year for me, particularly as I'm also due to become a dad for the first time in May. I met my wife, Erica, in the Gaiety panto. Oh yes I did!"
The All Star Wars opens at the Olympia Theatre on Tuesday for six performances.
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ISAAK’S MEMPHIS SESSIONS ARE SUN-THING SPECIAL
Beyond the Sun 
Chris Isaak
CHRIS ISAAK'S long-time ambition to musically salute his inspirations has finally been achieved on this superb album, Beyond The Sun. Legendary Sun Records producer Sam Phillips is a fan: "I love to listen to Chris Isaak. He's very talented, and his music is so damned honest. It's incredible."
Since he fell in love with his parents' 45s as a child, Isaak has been obsessed with the glory days of Memphis's Sun Studio and the visionary artists who got their start there, including Elvis, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis - all of them discovered and nurtured by Sam Phillips.
With his long-term band, Isaak went back to the original Memphis studios where Phillips had patiently coaxed those extraordinary flashes of genius from his aspiring stars. He was amazed to find that the small room Phillips had roughly thrown together, with a sloping roof and home-made acoustic amplifications, was virtually unchanged.
"You walk in and it is exactly the same. I'm not the kind of guy to talk about angels: I'm a very pragmatic kind of guy. But even I at some point had to recognise there was some magic in there," he said.
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AMERICAN X Factor judge and former Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger is set to send the temperature soaring in Ireland. Red-hot performer Nicole will jet in for a brace of shows, playing The Watefront Hall, Belfast, on Feb 15 and Dublin's Olympia on Feb 16.
SHAUN Ryder and his cohorts in Happy Mondays will bring the memories back (for those who can remember those days!) when they play Dublin's Olympia Theatre on May 15. 
