Prose Interviews the seriously funny Mark O’Sullivan

Mark O’Sullivan is a comedian, writer and an all-round smashing chap. He’s half of a comedy duo who you’ll find on the internet and a variety of TV stations soon, but more of that later. We met him in his shared creative space in Letchworth. It’s an arty place with different people doing a variety of things. There are sensible people there to motivate sensible things and then there are the creatives among them, who keep things light, fun and at times, downright silly. It has a truly awesome vibe.

Mark is currently writing for a couple of TV channels and has submitted some film they had commissioned that will hopefully be screened very soon on National TV. Prose asks him what sequence of events got him into it all.

“There was no pattern as far as I could tell. I was always into drama. I loved acting and as a kid that’s what I thought I would do; I’d always set my sights on being an actor. So I gave it a go after leaving college, messed around a bit and then became a drama and English teacher for four or five years. All without being qualified! It wasn’t meant to happen, I was just an actor-in-residence for a while and then kind of merged into being a teacher. I did ask if that was ok, and they assured me that it was. I enjoyed being a teacher, but I didn’t necessarily enjoy being part of the education system. I loved working with young people, though, and still do now.”

“I’d always loved comedy and pretty much watched all the comedy there was on TV when I was younger. I wrote some (probably) crap sketches when I was a teenager, and as I was raised a catholic, they’d get performed at the local catholic club. They always thought it was a good idea to ask me. I was famous within a band of forty elderly Irish women. I was the one, the golden boy!”

Mark then goes on to perform a very funny impression of an old Irish lady saying ‘Isn’t he brilliant, Bridget?’ We compose ourselves, and he continues:

“Then I had an idea for a play, trying to task myself with writing something ‘proper’. It took me ten years to write it, but I did write it! So when I left teaching and was trying to set myself up making films and the like, I thought that I had some time to do it at home; so I wrote a children’s play. It was called Professor McBenn’s Magic Pen. I sent it everywhere. I got the nicest, longest detailed reply back from the famous children’s author and playwright David Wood, saying something along the lines of ‘I can see some good in this, but this is why it isn’t right’. Then he set out why it was bad. I can’t even remember if I was disappointed. It was then that I thought writing may not be for me!”

We ask what happened next.

“Then I started writing with my friend Steve Thompson on a thing for ITV which meant that his massive agency represented me while I did that. I thought ‘this is a golden opportunity’, so I wrote a Radio play and sent it to his agent. I wasn’t that hopeful, but they ended up taking me on on the strength of that. On the back of that I wrote one, possibly two stage plays. Then I got involved in development with places like the Bush theatre. Back then, about eight years ago, their response would be either a ‘no’, a ‘yes’, or a ‘we like this, it needs some work, and we’d like to work with you to make it better’.

“So I ended up writing my first proper play with them, which was brilliant as it involved a proper director and actors. It was torn apart, then put back together again, and at no point did I feel at all precious about it, which surprised me. That made me really love collaboration in all its forms, even though I’m a control freak. Which is why, in things like Lee and Dean, I still have control and I enjoy that. We understand how to make our stuff the best it can be, we have a shorthand. We feed off each other, Miles and I. It’s all riffing.”

“The Lee and Dean sketch that we’re making for a tv network, it was the first time there was a proper budget, whereas normally we scrabble together our own money and put together what we can. In TV terms, though, the budget was still tiny. Thing is, we knew it had to be broadcast quality, so we took a different approach, we went at it in a slightly different way. For the first time we had to get people in. We’d never had a 1st AD (Assistant Director) before. We’ve never had that many crew around us before. It was really daunting. It was such a long process leading up to it, and there was lots riding on it. So when it came to the time, the very first take, I almost cried when our 1stAD shouted ‘action’. It was absolutely terrifying. I could have run out there crying. I thought we’d got it completely wrong. Even though neither of us said it at the time, it turned out that Miles felt the same.”

Prose Partner Paul was lucky enough to be there as well as see the sketch in its edited format. They did not get it wrong, they got it very, very right. We ask how he and Miles got to working together. He explains:

“Miles and I started writing together because we found each other funny and our wives were best friends. We tried doing a little blog online which was awful, mostly me trying to rip off Woody Allen. Most of our stuff comes from us at home or on a journey and we just start playing around, doing silly voices. Then the character of Auntie Vi came from one of those ad lib sessions. We started doing her on Twitter, and she got this really nice small, but impressive, following with lots of good, well placed people. They then started encouraging us to send things off, and that’s how that all started. It snowballed from there.”

We ask what books Mark would submit to Prose’s Books Before You Die list. He responds:

“Secret diary of Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend, or any of that series of books because he was the first literary character that I completely identified with, and I can go back and read them again and again. It’s a piece of history. Another one that is the only book I’ve read for a while that I couldn’t put down. I love ghost stories but am rarely scared by them. Then there was this one called The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters. It’s not even terrifying, but it’s creepy and it sort of freezes your body as you read it. It creeps in like damp and stays with you. It’s a beautiful book.”

Prose send Mark to the future in a Time Machine, and it’s a dystopian, Orwellian type place where comedy is banned. He accesses the TVs that everybody has to watch. What does he say?

“I think the only way of dealing with that would be to tell a joke. I’d probably tell this one: What’s green and smells like yellow paint? Green paint. Then I’d say ‘that’s what you’re missing out on, you idiots’

Do you know a Lee and Dean?

“I know hundreds of Lee and Deans. It’s all of them in the sketches.”

What’s in the pipeline?

“We’re currently developing some bits and pieces for the BBC and Channel 4 as well as writing for another BBC show. We’re just continuing to do our own stuff, some of which I can’t actually talk about until it happens. We’re also developing our first live stuff as well, which is something we haven’t done before as our characters, at least. Our agent thinks it’s time, as people have been nudging us to do it. It’s terrifying, though, because you don’t have that safety net where you can just yell ‘CUT’ and start again.”

Thanks to Mark for a very lovely meeting with me and we had so much to talk about that we think there needs to be a ‘Part 2’ to this interview. In the meantime, we urge you to watch Mark and Mile’s short film ‘Anniversary’ here, and you can see Mark’s work at www.bingofilms.co.uk or https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB5jWcD_AeqbDjljB7yOrsw and you can find him on Twitter as @immarkosullivan

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Originally published at blog.theprose.com on December 14, 2015.