Swines: FAHns retell the tale (SPOILERS!)

This is a transcription of the notes I jotted down after attending Swines in Vicar Street Dublin on 11 December 2019. It was a charity gig in aid of Dublin Simon Community and Soar.

Pre Show Messing
As always, Foil enters the stage on his own while the other two roam the audience. They each have a designated half: Arms the right and Hog the left side when facing the stage. For the benefit of any members in the audience who hadn't quite clocked these messers were about to squeeze their shoulder or nick their coat, Foil assures everyone that they'll get 'full value for money' quite soon. Arms gets his round of cheers first, because the names are confusing enough as it is without changing the order. Hog helpfully introduces himself as "Everyone's favourite!!!"

It doesn't take Hog long to 'borrow' a fancy coat and a snazzy bag from an audience member (well, the bag was most likely just handed to him by some fashionable audience member who wanted in on the audience participation, and fair play to them!) and start parading up and down the aisles with it. "Ah sure, thanks a mill!!! Look at this! Matching bag! Yeahhh!!!"

In McEwan Hall at the Edinburgh Fringe, Hog somehow made it all the way up to the 'balcony' seats. He was doing his own private gig up there it seemed, giggling to a captive audience. Both Foil and Arms were calling to him at one point that they really needed to get the gig started (timetables at the Fringe are very strict and the next act was on 5 minutes after their time slot... they weren't kidding). He didn't use the stairs to come back down, he just climbed over the railings and landed somewhere on row P. It wasn't exactly a death-defying feat but I'm quite sure it wasn't conform health & safety regulations either. On his way back to the stage, he spotted a lady in a VERY colourful dress and equally colourful frilly stuff in her hair, sitting on the first row of the tired seating section (you can see there's lots of space for FAH to roam in between rows 4 and 5 in the picture. She was the Chosen One for that night, and her giggles and shrieks were audible without microphone throughout the venue. She was a very colourful lady in all respects and she did brilliantly!

Memorable anecdotes from other gigs can be found on social media. For example, apparently Hog stole someone's jar of Nutella (why did you even bring... ah never mind, it's the Fringe), pierced the foil (heh) and ate a big scoop of it. Again... don't bring shopping unless you feel in a sharing mood.

After his running commentary on the lads' shenanigans, it's time for MC Foil to get on with some admin.

He proceeds to point out some exit stairs, making it quite clear that the one closest to the stage will be the one the three of them will be using. Arms gleefully adds some throwaway comment about there being a Platinum Club.

Hog, meanwhile, has succeeded in sourcing more jackets from the crowd. One is particularly striking, in Hog's words "a crazy cardigan thing!" Foil promptly launches into his radio announcer voice (which you'll remember from sketches such as The Narcissistic Song Collection): Arms's mouth trumpet solo is apparently Foil's cue to announce that tonight's gig is for charity. He's quick to mention that all jackets will be donated to worthy causes. Hog acts mock-surprised at the news they won't be making any money off the show that night and Foil jokingly mentions out-of-work bankers as the recipients, before suddenly asking: "Where's Mick? Where's our Merch Man?" Well, it just so happens he was sitting right next to me! I got to experience the following from my own private front row! After getting a lovely round of applause, Foil elaborates on the wonderful work Soar is doing for teenagers - check them out, they're sound lads! - while Arms makes his way towards him (us!!) and forces poor Mick to stand up and say a couple of words into his headset mic "for RTE". In case you're having trouble with the visuals: this involved Arms and Mick nearly cheek to cheek, Arms with a delightfully evil smirk on his face and Mick absolutely sweating it with nerves. Foil asks him: "What's scarier: the kids or this?" After allowing Mick to talk a little bit about his work running emotional development workshops for teens all over Ireland, Arms starts slagging him in his nasal high-pitched tour guide voice (a callback to the Craicling opening skit): Foil clearly felt that we needed a little altruism reality-check and made the valid point that, because we all bought a ticket to a show for with ticket money going to charity, we ARE however still getting a show so our charity contributions remain at net zero. That's us told! But we could make up for it by dropping some cash into the buckets at half-time or during the meet & greet.

Hog had been suspiciously quiet during this entire 'bit'. "I found a bag of shoppin'!" Arms response was class, if a bit predictable: "I feel a raffle coming on!" Hog soon found out that these items were meant to be gifts, an assortment of small items wrapped in bubble wrap, among which a jar of hand cream. The perfect excuse for Arms to show off his movie trailer (or rather 'radio ad') voice: "Hand creams. For the man who doesn't want to think." Um... 'scuse me Arms, was that a bit of a naughty comment there? Foil is at this point still the only performer actually standing ON the stage. Still doing something of a running commentary on the messing taking place at his feet. "I don't know what's going on, but we're taking it, it seems." I'm with Hog on this one: they need to get something out of this charity gig, right? Might as well be a jar of hand cream.

One reviewer for Swines during the Edinburgh Fringe called them on their kleptomania and it seems to have become an essential part of the Foil Arms and Hog warm up routine, much to the audience's delight! As always, it's up to Foil to herd the other two on stage and finally get some jokes going. Jokes go at 4 euro per joke, Arms claimed. It's a charity gig you see.

The Doomdah Song
Finally, at around 10 minutes in and with the audience nicely warmed up and comfortable with being gently messed with, it's time for us to join in with the familiar Doomdap Live Show Theme Song. Or as they call it: "The song that brings us on stage to start the show properly." Seems to me to be a rather elaborate way to say theme song, Foil.

For tonight (and in fact at every Swines show, and you'll see why later on) they will invite a guest conductor onto the stage to make sure the audience is singing in time. Foil is the one picking this lady out from the crowd (and yes, it has to be a lady). "Do you have any musical experience? You don't? You're perfect." Tonight's conductor was called Tania who was from the Ukraine, which the lads were delighted about (so much so that Foil attempted an Eastern European accent, repeating her name a couple of times and then offering to changer her name because he felt he couldn't really get it right).

Tania was kindly invited to stand up and was given a round of applause. The 'conducting' was of course just supposed to be exaggerated hand waving, so everyone could join in. If you've seen any of the DVDs, you know Foil's little monologue already: while the audience is singing, the lads announce themselves up on the stage at which point the singing should morph into loud cheering and whooping (also known as 'the difficult part'). And obviously:

"Make as much noise as possible would be absolutely brilliant!"

As per usual, it was Foil taking the lead, Arms on mouth trumpet and Hog doing the harmonies and the announcer voice.

World's Strongest Man Competition: The Mime Edition
Foil launched straight into his character, kicking off the first sketch on the Swines set list. We, the audience, were playing the part of... an audience. Te world's greatest mimes have been preparing for many months in the gym for this event, by watching other people lifting weights. Tonight is 'the finale'. Foil's character announces the competitors:

Arms as McCrudden then blows a kiss to his imaginary girlfriend on the front row who is (as Foil continues to narrate, sitting on a stool near the cymbal) absolutely beautiful. This is clearly a set up for later on.

The first event is The Deadlift. Hog's Von Hammerschmidt is first to the bar. The joke is of course that in mime... nobody knows how heavy the weights really are. So it's all down to technique. Hog makes a big show of his preparation, doing lots of heavy breathing and large-upper-body mimes. He immediately motions the audience to clap rhythmically, revving him up for the lift. The noises evolve into something animalistic, a cross between Robo-actor and Mary-morphing-into-a-creature near the end of the Irish Intervention sketch. Arms's McCrudden enters the stage then, miming a significantly larger upper body than before. Arms picked up the imaginary bar from about knee-height, which Foil of course mocked him for. He had to do that again.

"He lowers the bar... in every respect."

Well played by Foil, but this line was a bit too good not to have been scripted. But before Arms pretends to do his lift, he starts miming something else... adding weights to the bar! A bit of psychological warfare! This is where the realistic bit of the miming sketch ends, because Arms then goes off to the stage to pick up his imaginary girlfriend and after giving her an elaborate air-snog, impales her onto the bar as well. Some way to mess with his competitor's mind! (or should that be his 'mime'?) But the bar is now unevenly weighted, which he solves by picking up his imaginary grandmother (that's Foil providing context through his narration throughout of course, Arms isn't THAT good a mime), who gets impaled on the other end. Then finally he's ready to lift the thing, to a position Foil described as 'the T.rex', which I really enjoyed. At this point I'm not sure the lads know what a deadlift actually is, because Arms goes on to lift the bar over the head.

"I don't know if you know this about mime ladies and gentlemen, but remember it's very difficult to mime sweat patches..."

Easily my favourite quote from this sketch, even though it's (almost definitely) fake improv. Arms's face alone was worth the ticket price.

Let the madness begin! Arms switches to a one-handed lift, then starts twirling the bar like a majorette's baton while dancing about on stage. Foil's character isn't buying any of it.

"Okay no no, now that's completely ridiculous... you cannot do that. No please. It's completely unrealistic. I apologise ladies and gentlemen..."

Arms gives his girlfriend another kiss but Foil comments that she'd dead. Dark FAH from the start, how delightful!

Foil's character announces last year's mime world champion who sadly this year didn't make it through to the final. You guessed it, it's someone sitting in the front row who Foil dubs 'The Ukrainian Hammer'. Not just anyone mind you, it's a man sitting right beside Tania the conductor. Hammer gets a round of applause and he's asked by Foil how he thinks tonight's final is going. The Hammer answered that he thought the guy (he couldn't remember his name - classic FAH audience member stuff right there!) was doing great and took a sentence or two to say it. He fell right into Foil's trap:

"That's an awful lot to say for a mime! But it's great to see ya here and it's great you lost the accent."

(He wasn't really from the Ukraine, you see.)

The second event in the sketch is Atlas Stones. You know, I do believe they looked up 'World's Strongest Man Competitions' on Wikipedia. For the benefit of those who haven't, Foil explains that they're supposed to lift a huge heavy stone up to a pedestal. Hog's character does a nice smooth lift, good technique all the way through according to Foil, who's still comfortably sitting down on his stool babbling into a mic while the other two are visibly working up a sweat.

Oh the horror, Von Hammerschmidt has mimed dislocating his shoulder! Making it so much more difficult on himself than it actually has to be. Hog's flailing about the stage at this point, having the absolute craic. He passes Foil and nearly hits him. McCrudden's turn again, who's made his stone quite a lot larger than his competitor's. He's feeling very confident (Green Card Show vibes here!), chalking up his hands before the lift. Von Hammerschmidt takes the opportunity to blow a load of chalk into McCrudden's eyes, but McCrudden simply mimes he was wearing goggles all along. Clever! That's why he IS the bad boy of mime! Time for McCrudden to motivate the audience into clapping along for him, but he's not too happy with what he's given and we have to go again. Yeah, it's a set up, and while I got it straight away (my memory jogged from seeing the show at the Edinburgh Fringe I'm sure), many in the audience took a whole lot longer.

We were supposed to mime-clap. Obviously. It was absolutely hilarious, watching Arms and Foil nearly break character out of sheer desperation, noticing how a handful of audience members were still absolutely NOT catching on after the fourth go! Hog had already given up, giggling audibly at the audiences ineptitude. Clapping loudly while the rest of the venue is completely silent is one way to get the lads to notice you, that's for sure! Here's a near-verbatim (as far as I could remember afterwards) of Foil's running commentary on the audience's performance:

Back to McCrudden and his Atlas Stone. He lifts the rock over his head (another sweat patches comment from Foil... poor Arms!) and then repeats the joke from before, bouncing it around like a balloon. The sketch then moves on to a mimed insult competition where Hog's character would repeatedly knock on a door, giving Arms the finger before shutting the door again. McCrudden, knowing Von Hammerschmidt is such a technical mime that he'd always believe in a locked door... locks the mimed door, then hides behind it. There's quite a long sequence of the two of them slamming the mimed door into each others' faces, giving the finger and running away. This bit is clearly partly improvised because Foil is following the proceedings very closely while narrating, trying to figure out what they're getting up to. This prevents the sketch from falling flat (we're already around 20 minutes in a this point!) and keeps up audience engagement as well, because both Arms and Hog are continually doing little detailed movements to one-up each other and confuse Foil. Suddenly, Arms is clambering on top of a mimed horse, then gets off again and starts feeding it... while Hog drags in a bigger horse which he mounts using a ladder. Foil is utterly lost at this point, as are we. We're just watching those two clowns silently making a total mess of a sketch that once made a little bit of sense, and it's wonderful. Foil's never one to admit defeat and retorts:

I cannot wait to see the revival of this sketch post-lockdown. But we're not done yet, there's one more test: the mime Tug of War, to see who can pull their opponent to their side of the stage. Von Hammerschmidt is doing great, pulling McCrudden all the way across the stage (excellent moves from Arms there) until McCrudden starts fighting back. The obligatory to and fro pulling mime they then did was apparently in sync for the first time. Foil was delighted the rehearsals paid off. We were clearly at the end of this sketch so everyone was on the edge of their seats, awaiting the inevitable punch mime (hah!). And it's Arms, tying the rope to his crotch in an incredible show of strength. What's Von Hammerschmidt going to do!! You know what, I'm not going to give away what it is exactly that he pulls out of his bag of tricks. You'll have to go see for yourself!

CYMBAL SMASH!!

The Brexit Song
We all know this one from YouTube and their recent Vision at Vicar Street performance, so I won't (have to) go into that. Except for one important thing: there's an extra verse not included in either of those YouTube versions! It is... The Scottish Verse! (Thanks to a couple of FAHns with excellent memories for this transcription. One of whom is Scottish!!):

As it happens, Arms very recently did a new version of the Brexit song on Patreon and he DID include this verse, so thanks Arms!!

There's quite a silly bit at the very start of the song though, where Arms says he'll undo a button for the song... and he does, only it's a button at belly button height.

Foil's fast bit always gets a huge round of applause, as you might imagine.

Oh yeah, and Hog throws in a couple of 'fucks' every know and then in the stage version.

"We are gonna make it very fucking hard for you to leave this union!"

The Worst Stag Ever (part 1)
Sound effects of wind blowing hard across a plane. Foil's character struggling to keep upright is really quite convincing.

"This! Is the worst! Stag! EVER!! The Everest was a SHIT idea for a stag!"

Arms follows suit. He's whining in that high-pitched voice we know and love.

"I'm the worst best man ever!"

They've lost 'Kenneth', he froze to death because Arms made him wear a mankini.

"I just thought it'd be a good idea for a stag!"

There's another mate missing, who refused to put down the cans. Hog enters, carrying a huge pack of cans.

"Oy Oyyyy! Stag! Stag! Stag!! Which one of you bellends wants a cold one?"

It goes on like this... with Hog's character calling the dead guy a light-weight and a little bitch, while Foil's character keeps repeating that he's 'fucking dead!!'. Basically, this skit has exactly the same structure and purpose as the 'Deliveroo' one in Craicling.

CYMBAL SMASH!!

But after the cymbal crash, it's time for a bit of actual audience interaction with The Hammer! His name was Ger, but he preferred Hammer.

Beethoven Und Barry
Again, Foil is the master of ceremonies for the next sketch while Arms and Hog take on the juicy parts. Seems unfair maybe, until you remember there's a Foil classic coming up later!

Foil, speaking in a German accent that no doubt went down a storm during their German tour, introduces the audience to the Royal Concert Hall in Vienna. Today, they are auditioning for the 1822 Spring Programme, to be performed there for King Franz The First. You won't have much luck looking for historical accuracy in this sketch, but comedy-wise this is an absolute highlight in the show. First up on the bill it's a musical duo: Ludwig Van Beethoven Und Barry. Props to Arms for pronouncing Beethoven's full name perfectly in his proper German accent. For some reason (because he likes it probably) he also chose to give the Germanic composer a falsetto voice. Hog is playing the role of Barry, a very rough Irish character (not unlike the Kerryman actually). Foil's character thinks this is all very exciting. Arms as Beethoven takes great delight in showing off his German throughout.

As Barry explains to Foil and the audience, their act is called Beethoven and Barryyyy!!!, with Beethoven is on piano and him doing the lyrics. He goes on saying (echoed in German by Beethoven) that they think the Austrian music scene is dead (auf wiedersehen!). Schubert? Scheiße. Rossini? einfach, doppel Scheiße. People want something different!

Foil's character isn't the only judge for this audition though, they will be joined by a 'very special guest' - time for the front row to shift on their seats again! But it's Doctor Tania the Conductor again, who apparently also wrote loads of symphonies, one of which is entitled Ode to Hammer (a very aggressive piece).

Arms goes off to do his piano collecting - yes! Swines is the first FAH live show to have keys on stage! And Beethoven's very glad to have it on (imagine this in a fake German accent) wheeeeeelz. He makes a big show of his 1822 electric keyboard, milking the powering up as much as possible. All the while babbling German.

Their first song is to be the Moonlight Sonata. Barry isn't sure about the title though. Arms starts playing... and he can actually do it! But what we're all really waiting for is the lyrics, which go a little something like this:

Foil's character summarised his thoughts about the performance:

"There were definitely some positives there, but also... some negatives, I think?"

Beethoven immediately starts whingeing that it must be his piano playing, that he'd been too heavy on the keys and had let Barry down. Barry grumbles he thinks so too. But it wasn't the piano at all, it turns out! The costumes then?

"I knew we should've gone for the Lederhosen"

(Incidentally, for The Swines 2021-2022 run I'm fully expecting a mention of Lange Johannessen, you?)

But no.

"Vell, it vasn't zhe lyrics, so vhat vas it?"

(That's Arms doing a German accent in falsetto.) Foil's character decides to move swiftly on and asks them about their second number for this evening. They're going for that symphony one. The Fifth, a true classic! And the lyrics went like this:

That's Hog growling at the end there. He got a huge round of applause for it too! Foil called it 'murdering' and said it was still not working for him.

"There's potential for sure but look, can we just try something?"

Foil would like to hear it again but 'with no words, just as an experiment'. The audience goes 'ooooooooooooooooooooooh' and Foil remarks that he's been meaning to have those organ pipes cleaned. One guy in the front row is trying to leave for a toilet break unnoticed. Bad luck dude!

Oh look, that guy is just overwhelmed with emotion (Hog) He's off to make a donation! (Foil) I think he's going out to clean his own pipes... (Arms, still in character)

That did totally deserve the round of applause it got, to be fair. Anyway, Barry is STILL joining in to the audience's delight, only this time he simply went: DUH DUH DUH DUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHH!!! DUH DUH DUH DUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHH!!! DUUUU-HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH NNNNNNNNGGGNGNG

(And then he just started shouting like a mad person. Cannot wait for the subtitles on the downloads when this finally gets recorded.)

It's just not working, Barry's just shit! Barry gets angry, because if anyone's shit it's Beethoven over there! Beethoven protests:

Beethoven: Barry! I thought we where a team! Barry: Listen, are ya deaf?!? Beethoven: Not yet...

Okay I guess that joke HAD to be in there somewhere. Barry feels he's the one doing all the hard work, piano is easy! At this point, there's a bit of improv that involved Hog going off to get a mimed horse from backstage. Funnily enough it made a little bit more sense in this sketch than in the previous one somehow? Hog remembered he left his mimed back door open and goes off to close it again. The audience member coming back from cleaning his pipes got a warm welcome from an agitated but giggling Beethoven:

"You missed fucking nothing!"

It's all very silly. When I saw the show in the first week of their Edinburgh Fringe run, they didn't even make it to the end of this sketch at all, they literally abandoned it and moved on to the next sketch (we didn't mind but I'm glad I finally got the punchline this time round!)

"We'd better return to the script now, we've had our fun. We've created all this bullscheiße we're doing all the hard work here. You ready for the end of the sketch?"

Sassy Beethoven sounds suspiciously like that Evil German Nurse from Medical Chairs by the way. Arms is having heaps of fun babbling endlessly in his German falsetto because it's Hog who needs to push the script on, and he's having a fit of the giggles. Because of Arms. It's a joy to watch. Barry did learn a bit of German himself by the way:

"Du bist ein großer fucker! Auf wiedersehen!"

And off fucks Barry. Arms is still babbling about Barry being a negative influence on his life, not paying rent for years, gogobbling all of his sandwiches, ... they end up discussing a game of Cluedo I think, because there's talk of a library and a man killing another man with a wrench?

"You know instead of doing the sketch, why don't you try to show off your German a little bit more?"

If you challenge Arms like that Foil... he actually started conjugating made up German verbs then.

I really feel for Foil having to play the straight man in this sketch, I do! It just never ends! But Arms's German accent is truly incredible, still sounding distinctly German and yet you can follow along easily. I'd love to know how this went down in non-English speaking countries, Germany especially! If you were at their Berlin gig, please let me know in the comments below!

Can you imagine how the end of the sketch might go? Because I won't tell you here. But whatever it was, it was set to the tune of Für Elise (by Van Beethoven und Herr Yamaha).

CYMBAL SMASH!!

The Military Capture an Actor
I think the alternative title for this sketch should be 'Foil's Revenge' or something, after the Beethoven & Barry sketch. The first bit is exactly the same as the YouTube version.

Arms fluffed a line right at the start and he thought for a second there he was going to get away with it.

"We think it could have some military venue... VALUE! ... in this venue!"

Hog didn't let him.

"Drop down on the floor and gimme twenty, son!"

Arms genuinely looked a bit baffled, but Hog didn't budge.

"Seriously? Seems like it would take a long time... You are abusing your power on the stage."

Hog just stood there, grinning. So Arms finally dropped to the floor (cheered on by the audience, who got an earful of sass in return - I didn't quite catch what he shouted but it was something about the front row being a bunch of pricks) and performed the floppiest push ups I've ever seen in my life. And he didn't make it to twenty either. He claimed artistic license as an excuse. Fair enough.

Now, Foil does call himself Richard Chandley, the award winning actor on stage as well, making this a canon follow-up sketch to Buying a Handgun from Craicling. Even though he died in that sketch, didn't he? Continuity isn't on brand FAH anyway, we'll let it slip.

On YouTube (didn't they look FABULOUS!), the sketch ends on that trap door gag, but on stage they move to Russia where the asset/actor is tasked with infiltrating the Russian HQ. Which he does by swooshing. Arms is playing his Russian character from Santa is Captured by the Russians and the Green Card Game Show, including the large upper body mime. Hog is the General, again, which he does absolutely brilliantly. Foil just swooshing across the screen, which Comrade Arms remarks is fairly odd given that they are in ... a submarine!

CYMBAL SMASH!!

The Worst Stag Ever (part 2)
This time, Foil and Arms have been tied to a pole by cannibals, flames licking at their feet. The dialogue is much the same! Kenneth is... well, there's bits of him everywhere.

Hog comes in complaining those dead bastards still owe him for the hostel.

The Nature Trip
They're gonna do a quick costume change now and Foil is left alone on stage to 'cover', and kill some time. He does nothing, he just stares at the front row, menacingly. He switches to his character and welcomes 'the kids' onto the stage. Arms (a girl) and Hog (a boy) are wearing Hi-Vis jackets. Imagine Clara and the Badger but roles reversed, more or less. As it quickly turns out, Foil is their teacher and they're on a nature trip somewhere in a forest (the audience playing the part of the trees of course). The pupils are to hold their partners' hands. Hog doesn't want to hold Arms's hand though, he wants to hold the teacher's hand instead.

"No, you cannot hold my hand, alright? Because of the guidelines."

These guidelines are the new school rules. And they're very strict! Arms's charactder, for example, can't have a hug when she's sad anymore, but she can have a handshake!

(I'm wondering if they'll mess around with these guidelines post-COVID, because handshakes are a bit taboo now aren't they! And how cool would it be for Foil to wear a mask for this sketch!!)

Hog's character protests because if Arms can have a handshake then why can't he hold Foil's hand!... well, it goes on like that for a while. And it's all...

"BECAUSE OF THE GUIDELINES! OK, they're here for all of our safety right? The Guidelines are your friend!"

Yeah, I'm absolutely sure they're gonna tweak this one to fit our shared pandemic experiences. It's just too perfect!

Now, back to nature! A return to the wild! Girlie Arms (Nancy) is so into it that she calls for everyone to take off all their clothes. Teacher Foil (Mr. O'Neill) is very panicky. Boy Hog (Adam) mocks the guidelines but Mr. O'Neill assures him it's just because of basic decency.

Back to the lesson at hand: can the kids hear anything? No? Didn't they remember what they learned on the bus?

"Nature has music for those who listen!"

(I cannot tell you how often I've been aching to say this when I started my nature guide training!) The kids mouth it along. Adam shouts that poems are STUPID but Nancy feels differently. By the way, Arms has given his character a lisp and it's perfect, his lanky frame in the far too small Hi-Vis jacket bouncing around the stage like his Human Smartphone character only squeakier.

"I thought it was a lovely poem actually! I thought it was beautiful, you really touched me Mr. O'Neill. You really did touch me!"

Adam chimes in that he touched him too! In fact, he touched everyone on the bus! Just as Nancy claimed that (loudly), some invisible passers-by show up to make things more difficult for the poor teacher. Mr. O'Neill is in a bit of a state now.

"Forget about the poem now! It didn't happen!"

Adam catches on and confirms:

"It's our secret!"

This isn't going well at all for Mr. O'Neill. He urges the kids to just go find something for the nature table. The audience are swiftly made aware of the fact that they are still playing the part of the forest, when Hog and Arms hop off the stage and start roaming the tables. The audience is jittery. It's quite a sight, trying to keep an eye on two brightly coloured jackets (and boy are they FAST!) And of course, nothing and no one is safe. Arms is having the craic stealing people's pints, still giggling like a little girl.

"I found hand cream!! Ah it's a present, I shouldn't open it!"

He opened it. I think it's crystal clear by now that if you take your shopping into a FAH gig, you do so at your own risk. Foil has some trouble ordering the kids back onto the stage (for real, I think), to 'form a line'. But uh-oh, they've lost the new boy!! All three call out for him...

"Ger!!! Hammer?? Hammer for God's sake get up here now!"

It had to happen, didn't it. He gets an earful about wandering off into the forest. And for losing his Hi-Vis jacket (don't worry, they give him 'another' one). The kids want to play a game before the bus comes and Adam decides it should be chasing each other. Nancy has an additional suggestion:

"Let's play kiss-chasing!"

Now, this bit is apparently very dependent on how game the Hammer of the night is. In Glasgow, I've heard, Arms got an actual snog out of him. Not this time though... Our Hammer was very nice lad who tried his best to play along but no matter how hard Arms tried, he kept running away from his kisses. For shame!

Never mind, what was supposed to happen went fine (unlike at the Ed Fringe gig I was at, where the Hammer really didn't feel up to it). They switch to a game of hide and seek and the Hammer kindly let Arms push him off to the side of the stage behind the curtain while Hog's counting to ten. Foil disappears as well, leaving Hoggy all along on stage. While Hog is searching (guess where he'll go in a minute), Arms and Foil - still hidden away - do a little dialogue as Nancy and a deep-voiced fake and somehow Russian sounding Hammer, presumably while Ger just waits around wondering what the hell else these lads are going to make him do next.

(*) Arms, half in and half out of character, mocks the way Foil is talking about himself in the third person while in an intimate conversation. Foil riffs on Ukrainian grammar constructs... it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. (**) Polite round of applause for Foil there. By the way, he sounds exactly like his character from the Friends Shop sketch. (***) Ohh, I SO want to see the COVID edition of this sketch. I can't stress this enough.

Teacher Foil is coming out again and so are Nancy and The (actual) Hammer. Backstage, Arms and Ger have switched Hi-Vis jackets apparently. Arms's hair is all messed up (imagine THAT post lockdown with the long curls!!), making us - and Foil's teacher character - believe some kind of heavy petting had gone on there.

Hog has meanwhile dragged another male audience member on stage, who he claimed he 'found in the forest'. Both the Hammer and Forest Man get a round of applause.

CYMBAL SMASH!!

Act 2: Older Sketches
This is the end of act 1 for two-act shows, but Swines isn't quite over yet. After the interval, second act will include a selection of older sketches (for this one they chose lots of Oink! ones, including Songs for the Elderly, One Man Play, Baggage Handlers and Regional Accent Discrimination) and end on the Swines Finale, while I will include below.

A couple of precious moments though I do have to share.

A table in the second row was inexplicably left empty after the interval. Arms clambered on top of it during the messing-with-the-audience bit, and for the rest of the show the lads kept referring to it as much as they could, saying things like 'that table will always be left empty in honour of...'.

After Songs for the Elderly, Hog forgot what the next sketch was supposed to be and nervously looked for his mates to give him a clue. Foil who had already settled himself at audience level for his entry in One Man Play, wasted no time urging the audience to 'give generously'. During the back and forth arguing, Hog at one point called Arms a 'tall lanky prick', which is a bit salty there Hog but I believe that's happened before hasn't it? But my particular favourite was Arms accusing Hog that he slept with 'half the cast'. He got mocked for that bit of improv but kept insisting that it was way funnier precisely BECAUSE it was supposed to be a one man play. And he was right, dammit!

And it was naturally The Hammer -

"Hammer? The Ukrainian guy? Of course the Ukrainian guy!!"

- who was 'invited' to smash the cymbal at the end of that sketch (he... nailed it!).

The array of regional accents is known to change quite a bit depending on the location. Arms prompted a Welsh accent when it was Foil's turn to say his lines, which didn't quite go as planned as far as Foil was concerned. In a vaguely Welsh-sounding accent he stuttered:

"Eh yes - oh f... - well I said that I was going to practice the Welsh accent..."

But clearly, he didn't. Arms didn't need more encouragement than a struggling Foil:

"Ah well it's great to actually have people from Jamaica here today but I think you're supposed to be in a different room, across the hallway..."

Foil kept trying though, and struggling, until he finally gave up with a loud 'oh, shit'.

The Mummy Song
''Full disclosure: I recorded this song because I loved it so damn much after seeing it at the Fringe, and I had it stuck in my head (it's a really simple - it was after all Arms on the piano, haha - yet lovely melody) but I couldn't remember all the words which is terribly annoying. I haven't and won't share this (very bad) recording with anyone, but I did use it to transcribe the lyrics for you here.''

It all starts with Arms wheeling in his keyboard to centre stage again. He remarks:

"I always feel like I'm giving away a prize..."

Foil's on guitar, Arms on piano and Hog is supposed to press a key as well (just the one), but failing for the first couple of times and getting a bit nervous about it.

"I definitely have it now! Definitely. It's definitely that one!"

Foil remarks that the donations to charity are plummeting. Arms asks Hog:

"Want me to pull it out? I could pull it out."

Which got a ROAR from the audience he wasn't expecting. He shot a German nurse style 'naughtyyy' at us. Now, imagine them singing this as a mother and son duet, Hog in his normal voice (quite a decent singer!) and Arms in a nasal falsetto that made me wonder if the Ryanair Bitch might sound like that when she's in a pleasant mood. Foil is doing some singing too in the second part of the song, you'll figure out which role he plays.

The audience is all 'oooohs' and 'aaahs' at this sweet ending. And hey, did you notice that those ARE the actual names of the McCormack family! Well I mean, sometimes (because: FAH continuity issues). While Tania got her well-deserved round of applause, Arms had another go at his joke about the piano being a prize (didn't really work out did it Arms!) Arms and Foil agreed out loud on the song being a beautiful ending, Arms going higher and higher pitched till he was squealing while Foil dropping as low as he could, for unknown reasons.

The Worst Stag Ever (part 3) & Finale)
Arms did the honours:

"Well, thank you very much for being a wonderful audience, who would have thought, on a Wednesday! And for charity!"

Foil took the charity donation plug up a final notch by stressing that during the Meet and Greet, many people like to take photographs... and there will be people from the charities with buckets standing RIGHT beside them. No escaping!

"Saying hi to us is 2 Euro, a photograph when you put it on the Instagram ..."

Arms interrupted him there, saying that they were hardly Ariana Grande. Foil wasn't deterred:

"If you want a photo with Ariana Grande that's 20 quid..."

But before they went off, there's that little something extra that they started doing recently (rewatch Craicling to see it in action!), which is to 'recap the show'. After all, wouldn't we like to know what happened to some of the characters? Some appropriate music is put on (that famous strings bit from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, what else!) and Arms mumbles that he'll leave Foil to it - see ya in the car. Foil starts talking about how Beethoven did very well for himself and became one of the classics but that Barry... was never heard of again.

Then he turned to an audience member in the front row:

"Did you just open a can RIGHT NOW?? That's amazing timing."

Don't mess with Foil after a two-hour show! Anyway, Foil continues...

A loud BASH from the speakers. The two lads (Arms and Foil) are stuck somewhere life-threatening, apparently, but it's unclear where exactly. There's this cacophony of noises and voices coming from the speakers, swelling, as if a huge crowd is coming closer and closer.

Hog crashes onto the stage holding Tania's hand. Everyone's screaming their heads off (well, Tania's giggling, mostly). Hog gets the final line of the show:

"WHY DID YOU BRING US TO -"

Nope, I'm not sharing that. You'll have to go see Swines!

CYMBAL SMASH

And then, to a standing ovation, Simple Minds' Don't You Forget About Me blasts from the speakers while the lads asks for another round of cheers and applause for Tania and the Hammer.

The Meet and Greet - my first and only so far - was absolutely delightful (that story's for another page) and it goes without saying that I made my donation to both charities. Mick the Merch is a total legend and sweetheart, I cannot repeat this enough. I hope everyone who hasn't yet had the chance to meet them will get theirs very soon. Here's to a magnificent run for Swines in 2021-2022!