Smack The Pony

Doon Mackichan: I no longer care if I look like a prat

‘I no longer care if I look  like a prat,’ says Doon Mackichan with a laugh, settling down with a large plate of chips. ‘I’m allowed chips while I’m working, otherwise I just lose weight and irritate everyone,’ she adds. She does indeed have the angular physique of an overgrown bird – and today one running on nervous energy, given that her seven-year-old has a birthday party, her teenage daughter has a GCSE exam and tonight she has to be at the theatre.

‘It can be tough being a single mum,’ she admits (she has a charming lack of personal inhibition). ‘And I love the theatre but it can be bloody hard work.’

Mackichan, star of Smack The Pony, The Day Today and Knowing, Me Knowing You… With Alan Partridge, has swapped the small screen for the stage of late. In Sean Holmes’s 2009 production of Joe Orton ’s Loot, she played a homicidal nurse. Now she is appearing in Richard Jones ’s new production of Gogol’s satirical masterpiece, The Government Inspector, a lancingly funny attack on corruption and bureaucracy in a small Russian town. She stars opposite The Mighty Boosh’s Julian Barratt – making his theatre debut and, it seems, a beneficiary of Mackichan’s pragmatism in the rehearsal room.

‘He kept saying: “It’s so weird screwing up in front of so many people,” because he isn’t used to that,’ she says. ‘But we’re all learning. And I’ve learned not to care what people think.’

Mackichan has more reason than most to have developed a hard skin. If you’re wondering why you haven’t seen her oddball, left-field persona on TV recently, it’s partly owing to a turbulent pile-up of personal circumstances, in which her father died, she got divorced and her son contracted leukaemia. Her son is now in remission but the sheer awfulness of it all is clearly as present to her as a figure in the room.

She spent last summer in Edinburgh performing a highly personal one-woman show, Primadoona, which exorcised some of the trauma and won her a Fringe First. ‘I wanted to show that everyone’s suffering is so relative,’ she says. ‘It wasn’t me saying I’ve got the red card because I’ve had such a terrible time.’

She grew up in England and Scotland, where in drama class she was always cast as the ‘posh English bitch’. But it wasn’t until she went to university in Manchester (‘I became radicalised within minutes; there were so many intimidating, political women around’) that she realised she could perform. She responded to a poster on a women’s noticeboard asking for cabaret performers. ‘Only because no one else had,’ she says. ‘And the men’s board was full of people signing up to football.’ She blew people away with a sketch about an actress forced to strip at an audition. Next thing she knew, she was in a pub doing stand-up; Armando Iannucci, co-creator of The Day Today, was in the audience – and that was that.

Another Funny Dog Video from Smack the Pony « Something Wagging ...

Funny dog video coming up soon. But first an announcement.

Last week I promised to post some information about setting up K9 nose work games in your home based on the class Honey and I were taking. Unfortunately, snow postponed our last class so I’ll be posting something after the next class. Keep watching.

Maybe it’s bad form to post doggie videos two weeks in a row from Smack the Pony but they’re becoming my new “go to” source for canine humor.

Smut Warning & Spoiler Alert:

If you’re easily offended, you may not want to hit the “continue watching” button. Not everything Smack the Pony does is this clean.

Last week one reader mentioned she couldn’t see the video at all. Watching this video requires you to have Adobe Flash loaded on your machine. Apple doesn’t like Flash so it doesn’t come loaded on Macs. After a spoiler alert, I’ll describe the video for those who want to keep their computer free of Flash. But I’m not promising the joke will still work without the visuals.

**************************** Spoiler Alert ************************************

A woman is jogging in the park when she comes upon a Golden Retriever sitting in the path. When she stops to see if he’s ok, he barks at her. The woman realizes the dog is trying to tell her something so she jogs after him. After a few moments, the Golden Retriever stops next to a bully pup who then runs off. The woman follows him.

The bully dog runs into the woods leaving the panting woman beside the trail looking at yet another dog who begs her to follow and then runs off. The woman continues to follow until she comes to a Belgian Shepherd who urges her to follow. She jogs on stating that she can’t keep up much longer.

As the woman is obviously at the end of her energy, we see in the foreground a furry paw setting a twig upright in the mud which the jogger than trips over and falls face forward into the mud. As she looks up, we see the four dogs sitting in a row in front of the mud puddle, each looking off in another direction with a “who me?” look on his face.

Didn’t work? Sorry, I guess you just have to see it.

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