'It would never occur to them that I'm just some eejit with a funny voice and a silly T-shirt'

TALK TIME: MARTIN MALONEYand CHRIS TORDOFFComedians and 'Hardy Bucks'

‘The Hardy Bucks’ is a mockumentary-style comedy set in the west of Ireland. How did the idea come about?

Martin:In April 2007, I'd just finished a very depressing stint on a building site in Galway. I was in Swinford to recuperate and Chris happened to be around. He was studying media in Ballyfermot, and I had a couple of characters worked out – amalgams of different people we knew – so he took his camcorder and recorded me walking around Charlestown telling stories. We called that The Tale of a Hardy Buck.

You are culchie icons, so is it a shock for people to discover that you’re both English?

Martin:I suppose it must be. I came from Liverpool originally, Chris is from Leeds. Both my parents were from Swinford, and his mother is from Charlestown, so we both moved here, separately, when we were 11 or 12 years old.

‘The Trailer Park Boys’ are often mentioned as an influence on the show. Is that fair?

Martin:There are similarities certainly, but we'd have been more influenced by The Office, Extras, Gareth Marenghi's Darkplace, Father Ted. Stuff like that.

Chris, you play Martin’s nemesis the Viper. Is that character based on anyone in particular?

Chris:There are guys like the Viper in every town in Ireland – small-time drug dealers who cruise around in their cars with the windows wound down, jeering at lads on the street. They think they're dodgy, but they're not that dodgy. If you put them on the streets of New York, they'd sink like a stone.

Is it easier for you, as outsiders, to observe some of these idiosyncrasies of rural Ireland?

Martin:Well, I always considered Mayo my home, even when I was living in England. But it was a culture shock moving here as a kid, because it wasn't a holiday this time. It was a bit like 1950s America. There was one computer room in the school and you were only allowed to play Minesweeper. There was no surfing the net or anything like that.

Given the unflattering picture you paint of the fictitious parish of Castletown, were you worried how the show would be received?

Martin:We did worry, to be honest. But, like a Steinbeck novel, it was never about any one town in particular. It was like Royston Vasey in League of Gentlemen,or Craggy Island in Father Ted. Apart from my mother giving out to me about some of the language, there have been no complaints so far.

The people of Swinford seem to love the show. So there’s no such thing as offensive or inoffensive – only funny and not funny?

Martin:Yeah, I mean, we've been totally taken aback at how supportive the people of Swinford have been. Not just the people, but local businesses, too. When we were starting out first, we asked the management in Boland's pub here if we could shoot in their bar. They couldn't have been more obliging – opened their doors to us on a Sunday morning and told us to take as long as we wanted. The Gateway Hotel, too, has been unbelievably helpful.

How are you adjusting to the pressures of local celebrity?

Chris:We hear a lot of the catchphrases in the street. Martin gets "madder than a bag of spiders" thrown at him a lot. There's one scene in the most recent episode where my character gets hassled by kids on the street. That's real footage, they're not acting. But they're always very nice about it. They'll say, "Howya Viper, what's the crack?", like they just want a chat – it would never occur to them that I'm just some eejit with a funny voice and a silly T-shirt.

How big a deal was it to win the Storyland drama series award?

Chris:It was huge because we're not scriptwriters. We're not filmmakers. We're not even actors. We're just mates who watch a lot of comedy and, thanks to Storyland and RTÉ, had the chance to make something for ourselves.

Martin:Exactly, we're very happy RTÉ gave us that chance to do this because, if they hadn't, I'd probably be back working on the sites right now.

• Storyland is a competition organised by RTÉ for new online shows aimed at an audience aged 18 or over. The closing date for the next round is November 1st. See www.rte.ie/storyland/index.html.

To watch episodes of The Hardy Bucks, see www.rte.ie/storyland/finalists/hardybucks.html