Dermot Morgan
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His final and most acclaimed character.
Dermot Morgan (3 March 1952 - 28 February 1998) was an Irish school-teacher turned comedian and actor, who achieved international renown as Father Ted Crilly in the Channel 4 television sitcom Father Ted.
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[edit] Father Trendy and The Live Mike
Born in Dublin and educated at University College Dublin Morgan first came to prominence as part of the team of the highly successful RTÉ television show The Live Mike, presented by Mike Murphy. Between 1979 and 1984 Morgan, previously a full-time teacher at the elite private school St. Michael's College, Ailesbury Road, played a range of comic characters, who would appear between segments, including Father Trendy, an unctious trying-to-be-cool Roman Catholic priest given to drawing ludicrous parallels with non-religious life in two minute 'chats' to camera. He also played (among other characters) an intolerant GAA bigot, who would wave his hurley stick around aggressively while verbally attacking his pet hates. Morgan's success, which made him an instant hit with viewers, led him to quit teaching and become a full-time comedian.
[edit] Kenny Live
His relationship with RTÉ, however, became difficult, as the station tried without success to find some way of making use of what it saw as Morgan's incredible but undisciplined talent; a number of attempts in the form of 'pilot' shows never aired. (They allegedly lacked enough humour to air; he claimed that they feared the humour might offend some people[citation needed].) Morgan saw RTÉ as a conservative organisation unable to cope with avant garde humour[citation needed]. Morgan returned to the screen in the late 1980s playing his past roles and new ones - initially on Kenny Live, a new Saturday chat show presented by Pat Kenny which launched to fill the gap in the schedules left by the moving of the famed Late Late Show to a new Friday slot. However, the show axed its comedy slot when it changed its format in response to negative public responses to the show's structure.
[edit] Mr. Eastwood
Morgan moved into a new area when he released a comedy single in 1986 called Thank you very very much, Mr. Eastwood, a take on the fawning praise of his manager given after bouts by internationally successful Irish boxer Barry McGuigan, which 'featured' lines by McGuigan, Ronald Reagan, Bob Geldof, and Pope John Paul II, all performed by Morgan, in which they too thanked "Mr. Eastwood" repeatedly.
[edit] Scrap Saturday Breaks The Mould
Morgan's biggest Irish broadcasting success occurred in the late 1980s in the Saturday morning radio comedy show, Scrap Saturday, in which Morgan, co-scriptwriter Gerard Stembridge, and Pauline McLynn mocked Ireland's political, business and media establishment. In particular the relationship between then Taoiseach (prime minister), the ever-controversial Charles J. Haughey and his press secretary, P.J. Mara became legendary, with Haughey's dismissive attitude towards the latter and Mara's adoring and grovelling attitude towards the "Boss . . . the greatest Leader, Man of Destiny, Statesman, Titan, a Colossus", becoming a broadcasting legend and winning critical praise.
Morgan pilloried Haughey's propensity for claiming a family connection to almost every part of Ireland he visited through the mocking use of a famous drinks advertisement for an Irish beer called Harp, which had played on the image of someone returning home and seeking friends, especially "Sally O'Brien, and the way she might look at you". In the Morgan skit version, Haughey's visits to somewhere in the world, from Dublin to Dubai and elsewhere, would invariably cue after a few seconds the traditional music of the real advertisement, at which Haughey would begin "did I tell you, PJ, about my cousins in . . . " And he would begin discussing "my cousin François Haughey" (France), "Helmut Haughey" (Germany), "Yassar Haughey" (Palestine), "Yitzak Haughey" (Israel) or wherever, to the increasingly despairing Mara, who would groan "Ah now Jaysus, Boss. Come on now, Ah Jaysus (sigh)!"
The Haughey/Mara "double act" became the star turn in a series that mocked all sides, from Haughey and his advisors to opposition Fine Gael TD Michael Noonan as a Limerick disk jockey called "Morning Noon'an Night" and a host of other characters. When RTÉ axed the show in the early 1990s a national outcry ensued. Morgan lashed the decision, calling it "a shameless act of broadcasting cowardice and political subservience". An RTÉ spokesman famously said "The show is not being axed, it's just not being continued!"
[edit] Father Ted
Morgan's "big break", although it came late in life, undoubtedly came in the shape of the title-role in the Channel 4 sitcom Father Ted, which ran for three seasons from 1995. Writers Arthur Mathews and Graham Linehan developed the series from a character featured in the former's stand-up comedy act. The writers apparently specified Morgan as their first and only choice for the casting of the Father Ted character.
Father Ted centred on three disparate characters. Father Ted Crilly was a financially dubious character living a frustrated life trapped on the island and played by Morgan. Famed Irish TV comedy actor Frank Kelly played the retired Father Jack Hackett, a foul-mouthed alcoholic, while dim-witted Father Dougal McGuire was played by new Irish comedian Ardal O'Hanlon. In addition to the three priests was their housekeeper, Mrs Doyle, played by Pauline McLynn, whom Morgan had worked with on Scrap Saturday.
[edit] BAFTA award
Father Ted's comic depiction of Irish Catholicism earned it wide popularity and critical acclaim. In 1996 the show won a BAFTA award for Best Comedy, while Morgan won a BAFTA for Best Actor, and McLynn the Best Actress award. Apart from the main characters, many other successful side characters featured, most famously the camp hyperactive Father Noel Furlong, played by Irish comedian and British talk show host Graham Norton.
[edit] Sudden death and legacy
After the recording of the third season had been completed, Morgan announced that there was to be no more series of Father Ted. He was instead working on a new comedy series, based around two retired football players living in a small flat together. However 24 hours after finishing the recording of the last episode of Father Ted, while hosting a dinner party at his home, Morgan collapsed and died of a massive heart attack. He was 45.
Frank Kelly said of his acting colleague "Dermot's mind was mercurial. I think he was a kind of comedic meteor. He burned himself out." The irony of Morgan's death, at a time when after twenty years of struggle, he had finally achieved financial and artistic freedom, was not lost on his family and friends and commented on by his colleagues in the media. Ironically, for a station that has such a tempestuous relationship with him, repeats of Morgan's Father Ted on TV and Scrap Saturday on radio are now on constant show.
Morgan is generally perceived to have been Ireland's finest satirist in the last decades of the twentieth century. He gave to RTÉ a particular blend of successful satire, through Father Trendy and Scrap Saturday. Tragically for Morgan, as RTÉ itself admitted, the station he worked with was ill suited to his comedic talent and failed to make full use of it. It was in a British-made TV show about Irish Catholic priests that Morgan finally achieved international acclaim and the sort of steady income and support he had sought from RTÉ. Unfortunately, however, his sudden death denied him the chance to show the full repertoire of his comedic and satirical skills, leaving him remembered internationally for just one, fondly remembered sitcom, Father Ted.
Morgan was survived by his partner and young son, and by two sons by his earlier marriage. His Requiem Mass in a church in Dublin was attended by among others, the President of Ireland Mary McAleese and her predecessor, Mary Robinson and by the leaders of Ireland's church and state, many of whom had been the victims (often to their own amusement, sometimes to their anger) of Morgan's humour in Scrap Saturday.
Dermot Morgan was cremated in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin and buried in Deansgrange Cemetery.
In 1999 his three sons produced a book about Morgan, named in honour of his association through Father Ted and Father Trendy with Catholicism Our Father (ISBN 1-874597-96-0).
[edit] External links
| Father Ted | |
|---|---|
| Characters | |
| Father Ted Crilly | Father Dougal McGuire | Father Jack Hackett | Mrs. Doyle Bishop Brennan | Minor Characters |
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| Major Cast and Crew | |
| Dermot Morgan Ardal O'Hanlon | Frank Kelly | Pauline McLynn Arthur Mathews | Graham Linehan Pat Shortt | Jim Norton | Graham Norton | Tony Guilfoyle |
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| Other Related Pages | |
| List of Father Ted episodes | Craggy Island | My Lovely Horse | Feck | |
