How three lads from Dublin became internet sensations and hottest ticket in town
They're three lads from Ireland who have become internet sensations through what they describe as absurd, high-energy comedy.
Foil Arms and Hog have become one of the internet's most renowned comedy sketch groups with more than one billion views online of their weekly videos, seen across Facebook and YouTube, and a list of famous fans including Emma Thompson and Rowan Atkinson.
The group, which consists of Sean "Foil" Finegan, Conor "Arms" McKenna and Sean "Hog" Flanagan, have also sold out the Hammersmith Apollo, New York Town Hall and been one of the most popular acts at the Edinburgh Festival with their fast-paced live shows, full of sketches and funny musical numbers.
They are going on a national tour with their "Hogwash" show, a fast-paced mix of sketches, improvisation, audience participation and talking suitcases, as well as plenty of music, including a parody of ‘Every Musical Ever’, and a rock anthem from a group of octogenarians looking to escape a retirement home.
The tour starts in Cardiff on September 29 and sees the group play to big theatres and halls across the country, including Birmingham Hippodrome on Sunday, October 1.
The three formed the group after meeting in the University College Dublin drama society in 2008 after finding a shared love of Father Ted and other comedy and spoke about how they started out on the stages in Dublin and their struggles to get their name known.
Conor said: "We started out within the recession and were doing comedy in the clubs in Dublin and then we got paid for it and decided that there weren't really many other jobs going and this was basically cash in hand for messing around with your friends."
Sean Finegan said: "Unfortunately, when you do the clubs as a sketch group, you still get paid the same amount of money as a stand-up would, so you're splitting it three ways and it took a while before we could stand there on our two feet, financially bolder.
"It built slowly and then we started doing videos online, got a bit more notoriety and more people started coming to the show, so it really was a slow, long build."
Sean Flanagan said: "It was also like we got a personal trainer who made us go to the gym by doing the videos every Thursday and because we committed to something, we had to do it and unlike, I imagine, other stand-up comedians, we had a regular office to go to and bang out this video.
"We had a structure and we had to grind out another video every Thursday and, sometimes, it was torture, but it gets a bit easier now."
The group said the internet videos had been a great way to get themselves known and also learn what was funny and what wasn't funny.
Conor: "I think the internet videos were just a great way to publicise us and for figuring out how to be funny on camera, which wasn't immediately obvious to us."
Sean Finegan: "I think we almost had two groundings, which was learning to be funny on camera and then the Edinburgh Fringe as we started doing that a long time before the videos and that was the brutal grounding of trying to be funny on stage."
Sean Flanagan: "For a live situation for a live show, I think you need to be funnier because you need to make all the people laugh all the time, whereas with a video, it will find its audience and they'll like it and they'll share it with people who they think will like it as well, so it will get the hits.
"However, with a live show, if you only make half the audience laugh, the other half will stand out and the people who are laughing will notice the other people aren't laughing and it'll snowball, but then you'll get the momentum the other way and find people are laughing all the time, so it can go either way."
The work has paid off for the group, with thousands of people tuning into Facebook and YouTube to watch new videos every week.
Among the classic videos have included their mother and son recurring series Anne and Oisín, parties involving days of the week, school subjects and different drugs, and three monks who joined a monastery and wanted to leave.
The group said one of their favourite series was their immigration series, where the two Sean's are interviewed at the immigration desk by a customs officer, played with a range of different accents by Conor, about the country they're coming into, with a range of funny answers.
Conor: "I think it's been great because we did the USA one first and we noticed it was a great way to slag off a country, but not in an aggressive or confrontational way as you're asking questions that are funny about America, such as 'America is governed by two parties, name them: the gun lobby and big tobacco'.
"You get people doing the answer in their head and then you give them the other answer and you get away with a lot more by doing it through that medium, so it's a fun one."
Sean Flanagan: "We did do the Indian one and wondered whether we should do it, but eventually, we worked out how we could make it funny and then we thought we did it well."
The two Sean's also put a lot of work in their sketches as overbearing mother Anne Flanagan and her long-suffering son Oisin, with Sean Flanagan putting on a very funny performance as Anne and Sean Finegan equally as funny as teenager Oisin.
The group said the characters were a mixture of all their mothers growing up rolled into one and a lot of Sean as a teenager and said the double act resonated so well and brought back memories for their audiences.
Sean Flanagan: "One phrase we keep hearing at our shows if we interact with the audience afterwards is 'oh, you must have planted a bug in my house because that's me' or 'my child keeps telling me that that's you, mum'."
Conor: "It's great because now, instead of the child saying to their parent that they're so annoying, they can now show an example of them on our videos and they can laugh at that.
"My mother says in one of the videos that it's about cleaning the house before visitors come, which was very relatable growing up, and the mother hands out a kind of luminescent green soap and tells the child to go fill up the Molton Brown bottles, but it's like a Tesco soap.
"My mum said she never did that, but I said, yes, true, but you did used to get the Molton Brown bottles and hide it in the boot of your car, then when visitors came, you brought it out, so you kept the good stuff for company."
The success of the videos has translated into bigger and bigger audiences, with the group saying they knew they'd made it when they booked a venue in Edinburgh that they thought was too big, but ended up filling it.
Their sketches have been shared in more than 150 countries, from local radio stations in the Lebanon to television shows in the UK, Australia, USA, Canada and the Middle East and they have also amassed tens of millions of followers in India, the Philippines and China where they are known as ‘The three brothers.’
On the Chinese equivalent of YouTube (Bilibili), the trio have gained one million subscribers, making them one of the top foreign acts on the platform and their admirers may include Hollywood star Woody Harrelson, who uploaded one of their sketches without crediting them.
Sean Finegan: "Well, he claimed to be a fan and I would love it if it was true as he saw the video and posted it on his channel, so Woody Harrelson stole our video, which is still our biggest claim to fame!"
The humour of the group has been part of their success, with Conor saying the Irish humour may work well because "We haven't invaded anyone and so people think, yes, we can be friends" and they are close to selling out their upcoming tour.
They said there were a lot of influences that helped them develop their own comedy, including the Marx brothers, Dermot Morgan from Father Ted, Monty Python, Jim Carrey and Lee Evans.
Ahead of playing Birmingham on October 1, the group said there was something about the West Midlands and their humour which just mixed well together and remembered some of their earlier gigs in Birmingham.
Conor: "The first time we played Birmingham, we booked accommodation and arrived in the area where it was to find it looked like there was no accommodation and we were supposed to be staying above an Irish bar.
"We looked everywhere, then eventually found number 15, where we were supposed to be, knocked on the big iron door and the door opened to a room full of Irish flags and a pub which we thought was closed, but they were actually having a lock-in in the centre of Birmingham.
"We did get a decent deal though, five Euros per bed, and a free pint as well."
Sean Finegan: "Those Birmingham shows sold really well for some reason and we were so surprised the first time we went there, so there must be something about the are as it has an air of fun about it, a sort of mischievous fun.
“The audiences there always love the show when things go wrong and that’s the thing of when it’s going wrong and you have to try and fix it and it becomes chaotic.”
The group said some of the best moments on the stage had come from unexpected moments, such as the time they wanted to involve a woman in her 90s in the final sketch of the show and found that when they came to her, she’d gone to the toilet and, after all that, the crowd still cheered when she came onto the stage.
They said that things like that just helped make the job what it was, with lots of funny stories and good material to work with,
Conor: “There are just so many maniacs out there, in the best possible way, and if you get to chatting to people, they’ll always give you something if you’re prepared to sit that and chat, as everyone’s got a story.”
Sean Finegan: “One of the last shows in Edinburgh, I remember talking to a lady who was a GP and asked her what the last thing she did before she went on holiday, which was apparently looking at a distended testicle, which we ended up working in the end of the show.”
Sean Flanagan: “We also asked some guy, who turned out to be a solicitor, about the last case he worked on, which was against a plane, a faulty plane and it was fascinating and grew legs throughout, even though he couldn’t go into the full details because of statutes, but it was an exciting night.”
The Birmingham date on October 1 comes as part of a busy tour and the group said time was running out to get tickets for the show.
Conor: “Thankfully, there’s only a few rows left in the theatre for sale. We come back to Birmingham every year and it mostly sells out, so we feel like we’ve done really good shows there and this one is definitely our best.”
Sean Finegan: “I’d say the best thing to do if you’re thinking of coming to see us is to go to the YouTube channel and look at some of our top videos and, if you like those, then the live show is even funnier and if you love the videos, you’re going to love the live show.”
Foils Arms and Hog play Birmingham Hippodrome on Sunday, October 1, with the show starting at 7.30pm.
Tickets cost £26.50 and can be bought at birminghamhippodrome.com/calendar/foil-arms-hog-hogwash/
To find out more about the group and to see their videos, go to foilarmsandhog.ie
