Foil Arms and Hog are officially Irelands biggest sketch comedy group. Their online videos have over a billion views and their last tour played 136 shows, in 57 cities, in 21 countries. Now they're back with a new show and their biggest tour yet, entitled Skittish.
The trio - Sean Finegan (Foil), Conor McKenna (Arms) and Sean Flanagan (Hog) - have sold out shows at the Palladium in London and the Sydney Opera House, and in March next year they play arguably the most famous theatre in the world, New York’s Carnegie Hall. Before that, however, they have a six-night stand in Vicar Street, Dublin coming this December... with more Irish dates set for 2025.
We asked the lads for their choice cultural picks...
FILM
Birdman, a film set in the backstage of a theatre during the production of a play. The differing egos of the cast and crew battle it out in what seems the most chaotic, narcissistic, self destructive and fantastical ways… but we've spent a lot of time in plays and around other actors and we can assure you this is as close to a documentary as you can get. We all love this film so much, to the extent that when flying back from a gig in Helsinki we realised we had all independently decided to rewatch it on the flight.
MUSIC
Booka Brass Band, a New Orleans style Irish brass band. We play their music as the audience are coming into our shows and frequently after the show as we await a compliment on our performance we are instead met with 'That music you played before the show was so fun, who is it?’. So there ya go, that’s who it is, now stop asking and give us compliments.
BOOK
Save the Cat is a how to guide for wannabe movie script writers. We haven’t written the movie yet, but we’re getting closer thanks to this gem. It cuts through the crap and gives you the info you need. In terms of scriptwriting we’re currently a bit like Rhasidat Adeleke, good over a shorter distance, but we’d like to bring out our inner Sonia O’Sullivan.
THEATRE
We will happily go along to see anything that Caitriona Ennis is in. She was in the drama society with us in University and has gone on to become one of Ireland’s best stage actors, she lights up the stage. Also knowing her on a personal level, she would fit seamlessly into Birdman.
TV
Schitt's Creek. A wealthy family falls on hard times and finds themselves in small-town America living out of a motel. The three of us have very different senses of humour, but in terms of sitcoms this is the one we can all agree on. They have nailed the characters and it’s proper laugh-out-loud.
GIG
An Irish band who just always blow the roof off when they play live are HamsandwicH. They’ve a few gigs around Ireland in November and December. We once got the chance to join them on stage for a song, Foil played guitar, Arms the keyboard and Hog got the triangle. Hog wasn’t happy but he nailed it.
ART
You gotta check out Vanessa Power. She’s an Irish typographist (not sure if that’s a word), basically she does word based wall murals. Sexy lettering. Think she’s fab. We got her out to our office to do some murals on the walls and they look great! Haven’t mentioned that to the landlord yet but it’ll probably be fine.
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RADIO
Ya gotta love Pat Kenny. We were lucky enough to have been interviewed by him a while back. He’s just such a pro, nothing phases this man and his range of knowledge is astonishing, and on top of all that he’s nice. What a @#$%&!
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TECH
Maybe this is a little obvious but YouTube. Social Media is banditland for content creators, but YouTube has stayed the course, upholding our copyright complaints, paying us a revenue share and even sending out little presents for notable achievements. We recently hit 1 million subscribers and just received our shiny gold play button in the post. We’ve uploaded over 600 sketches there over the years and it's the reason we can now play shows all over the world.
THE NEXT BIG THING...
Irish stand up Shane Daniel Byrne. Following in our footsteps as a comedy act with three names this lad is seriously funny. Buy his tickets, he’s going to be HUGE, but only after you’ve gotten ours first…. obviously.
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Find out more about Foil, Arms & Hog's Skittish tour here.
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