"WE ONLY started writing the play three years ago – everything has happened so fast," enthuses Oisín Kearney of the journey he and writing partner Michael Patrick have been on with My Left Nut, their acclaimed one-man theatre show based on the latter's rather embarrassing teenage cancer scare, which they have just adapted into a sharp three-part comedy drama for the BBC.
"We took it to Dublin, then took it around Ireland and to Edinburgh, then started writing the TV show," explains the Warrenpoint man, giving us a potted history of the play which he directed and co-wrote with Michael (who portrayed himself ) from its origins at the Dublin Fringe Festival's highly respected Show in A Bag segment to the 2018 Edinburgh Fringe Festival and now on to our TV screens via the BBC Writersroom's Belfast Voices development group.
"Everything's happened so quickly, it feels quite surreal."
With all three 30-minute episodes of the Belfast-shot My Left Nut having been made available at the start of March via iPlayer and BBC1 Northern Ireland screening them on Tuesday nights over the past three weeks, the series has come to air just as the coronavirus pandemic has forced people to rely on their TVs for entertainment even more than usual.
"It's a bit crazy that it's now on just as everyone is sitting inside with nothing else to do – we've actually got a captive audience," marvels Belfast-born actor and writer Michael, better known as 'Mick', whose left testicle swelled up to the size of a Coke can when he was in his mid-teens, causing him all manner of embarrassment and worry.
The affliction was eventually diagnosed as a harmless hydrocele, though Michael had convinced himself it was testicular cancer. After losing his dad at an early age to motor neurone disease, the angst of developing a possibly life-threatening condition and its potential impact on his family provides My Left Nut with plenty of emotional heft to counterbalance its more obvious teen comedy aspects.
"We set out to write a comedy that had a serious message and serious elements to it – but it was always a comedy first," admits Michael, who met Oisín at the University of Cambridge where they ran the Ireland Society together.
"It is a funny story: b***s are funny, teenage life is funny – it's awkward and horrible and you have to laugh at it. That boundary between comedy and drama, where we can make people laugh at something but also try to make them cry as well, is something that really interests us."
Both writers enjoy comedy cameos in the show, though Michael admits that he found it hard to watch some of the more emotional moments when he was on set.
"A lot of the scenes between Mick and his mother are word-for-word the same as they were in real life," he tells me.
"So they were hard to watch for me and for my family, especially as the actors absolutely nail it and the director [Paul Gay] really knew what he was doing with the tone of the whole piece.
"I remember watching them film the scene where Mick tells his mum that he has a swelling on his testicle: the tears were just streaming down my face."
While the original one man show was set in the early 2000s, the BBC version – which stars Belfast newcomer Nathan Quinn-O'Rawe as 'Mick' and Dublin actor Sinéad Keenan as his mum, Patricia – updates things to the present day and includes more of a focus on a couple of the 'supporting' characters in a story which had to be fleshed out from the stage version to justify a three-episode arc.
"Mick's girlfriend Rachael [Jessica Reynolds] wasn't in the play," reveals Oisín.
"She was actually was in early drafts until we timed it and realised we had to cut 20 minutes. When we came to write the TV script it was lovely to be able to bring her back in as a really important emotional plotline which could be key spine in the TV version."
Michael adds: "In the play I think my sister [Lucy, portrayed by Lola Petticrew in the series] has about one line, which is fine when you're seeing everything just from my perspective – but for TV we wanted to create a full, living, breathing world.
"Even 'the lads' [Conor, played by Levi O'Sullivan, and Tommy, played by Oliver Anthony] were quite one-dimensional in the play, so it was nice to see them a little bit more too."
For those who enjoy the BBC version of My Left Nut, the good news is that there are plans afoot to bring the one-man show back to the stage in the near future – and Oisín and Michael also have plenty of newer material on the go as well.
"Our second play The Alternative was on at the Dublin Theatre Festival last year and was nominated for Best New Play at this year's Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards," says Michael of the acclaimed dramatic reimagining of Irish history, which missed out on Best New Play but did pick up a Best Director gong for Jim Culleton when the winners were announced on Saturday.
"We're also currently in the process of developing another new TV show together and we're under commission from Prime Cut Productions to write our third stage play as well."
As for My Left Nut, while the pair have enjoyed its critical acclaim, the response from male audience members throughout its run on stage and screen has been an unexpected reward, as Michael explains:
"The number of men who have opened up about their own health problems after seeing it was not something we were expecting," he admits.
"We just told this story because we thought it was funny, but now some of my best friends have told me that they've gone and got their testicles checked out after watching – that means so much, it's brilliant."
:: My Left Nut is available on BBC iPlayer now.
