View from the Green Room: Knickers off for Reggie

Pat Fitzpatrick is the person behind ‘Reggie, Blackrock Road’, who over recent years has built up a significant online presence with humorous takes on life in Corrrrk.

Pat is also the author of “101 Reasons Why Cork is Better than Dublin”, and “101 Reasons Why Ireland is Better than England”.

He’s also the man behind the excellent ‘Ask Audrey’ in the Examiner, a spoof agony-aunt column that appears weekly and deals with issues as demanding as how to avoid “Norees” (Cork north-siders) while skiing in Austria and how to sympathise with unfortunates that don’t have a plummy Cork accent.

Reggie is proud of his posh Cork pedigree and pities those in the “not-Cork” part of the island. He explains the nuances of that artificially-rounded Montenotte accent that breathes condescension like a hard-hearted traffic warden.

Reggie is the man who put the nob in snob and could look down at you from a cellar. He’s not just from Corrrk; he’s from the better part – the Blackrock Road where fortunes exist only to impress and to separate people like Reggie from people like us.

He’s on an Irish tour in search of votes from common bog-standard culchies that live in houses without electricity or water. Like the Blaas in Waterford.

When talking to tonight’s audience, he regularly checks that his victim can actually read. “Uhhh…well done youuuu…who’d have thought that a person from your background could actually read?…” It’s impossible to take offence because the comments and insults are so outlandish and condescending, you’d have to laugh. And that’s what our Reggie is after. He’s running for President as the “voice for the incompetent”. He reassures a woman in the second row that “you’re by no means the worst-dressed here” and that he actually saw women like her that went out for a swim in Owenahincha and came back in with a tattooooUUU”.

“The Blaas have no sense of style,” claims Reggie. He pays serious money for all his clothes and even his underpants that retail around €40/pants. “Hell’s bells…” says he… “I’ll just show you” and promptly rips off the trousers to reveal a pair of blood-red y-fronts that he remains in for both halves of the show.

The problem with dropping your pants on stage is that it’s usually confined to bedroom farces and has comic shock value that lasts about as long as a discrete kiss. Performing all night in your knickers becomes look away tiresome.

Reggie’s audience is a mature lot that clearly tune in to his podcasts, love the material and, like me, enjoy his “Dear Audrey” each Friday in the Examiner. Quite a number remained later to buy his book and to pose for selfies.

“Reggie for President” is an enjoyable night of wry comedy in Garter Lane but I think it’s time to lose the underpants or… maybe… keep them on and wear them under the pants. That’s why they’re called UNDERpants.