So, Aislings 1 & 2 are well on their way to being Latvian. They’re loving it. And so are we. ‘We’ are the series creators, yours truly and Brigita, the team behind I’m Irish, Get Me Out Of Here. And we’re happy because we have a hit on our hands.
I uploaded the first episode a few weeks ago. At least, I think I uploaded it, but it might have been downloaded – my sense of direction isn’t the best. Anyway, that was Wednesday, and by Friday we had 507 hits. It had gone up to 4,609 by midnight on Saturday, and by the following Wednesday, when we’d just finished the second episode, we went over the million. We watched it happen – Brigita, two Aislings and me. In fact, we made it happen. We sat with our laptops on our laps and slapped our return buttons over the finish line.
–Ohmygod! Seven numbers!
–That’s, like, a million!
Oh, the hugging and caressing. Well, no. But there was hot chocolate and a room full of happy Europeans.
That first episode was ‘How to Say ‘Thank You’’, and the Aislings were stars by then. They couldn’t leave the house without someone shouting ‘Say Thank You’ or ‘Fuck Off’ at them. The second episode, ‘How To Use Public Transport’ was even bigger. The scene where Brigita led the Aislings upstairs on the 40A to Finglas is cinéma vérité at its best. I kneeled up on the seat and hung over the stairwell as they climbed the steps and the two blonde Aisling heads turned, and showed their frightened, fascinated faces.
–Are yis makin’ a fillum?
Aisling and Aisling follow Brigita to the front of the bus. They cling to her.
–I said, are yis makin’ a fuckin’ fillum?
–Yeah, I tell the guy who’s just thumped me in the back.
–Cool, he says. –For the telly, is it?
–Yeah.
–The internet, like?
–Yeah.
–Cool.
Here – there, on the 40A – I make the decision that may change the course of my life.
–D’you want to be in it? I ask him.
He’s about 18. Or 50. He could be any of the ages in between.
–Me? he says.
–Yeah.
–Serious?
–As.
–Cool.
He looks at me.
–I know you, he says.
–Yeah?
–Yeah, he says. –We were in school together.
I look at him carefully.
–Johnny?
–How’s it goin’?
–Not too bad. Yourself?
–Yeah, grand, he says.
We swap phone numbers, and I tell Johnny what I have in mind.
–Good idea, he says. –But I have a few suggestions.
Anyway, I turn the camera back on and go to the front. I take the seat across the aisle from the Aislings. They’re afraid to look behind them.
–Where are we going, like?
–Finglas, says Brigita.
–Where’s that?
–It is on the north side of Dublin.
–Oh my God, no fucking way! says Aisling 1.
–How did that happen? says Aisling 2. –We didn’t even, like, go through a checkpoint or anything.
–Can you hear them? says Aisling 1. –There are no English people on the bus. Like, at all.
–You are Irish, Brigitta reminds her.
–Yeah. God.
I keep the camera on the Aislings but I can hear my long-lost buddy coming up the aisle.
–Ladies!
They scream.
Johnny pushes in beside me, but he’s a natural; he shifts his head to the left, so I have a clear view of the Aislings. I rest the camera on his shoulder.
–Can I interest yis in some merchandise? he asks the Aislings.
–What did he say?!
–How would I know, like?! I’m not Russian!
Aisling 2 grabs Brigita’s shoulder.
–Can you understand him? What did he say?
–He wants to sell you drugs, Brigita explains.
–Oh my God, how much?
–What have you got, like?
It’s all there in Episode 2: the Aislings buying the bag of yokes from Johnny; flirting successfully, to get him to shave a few euro off the price; Brigita expelling them from the bus because their behaviour has been much too Irish. –You are greedy and immodest, Brigita tells them as she escorts them down the stairs. The Aislings standing on a corner of Mellowes Road, clutching each other and the bag of yokes as the bus, and the camera, glide away and it starts to rain. It’s a little masterpiece, my best work yet – or ever. Over two million hits, and four questions in the Dáil. The ‘Say Thank You’ and ‘Where’s That? ’ T-shirts start appearing a few days later. Then there are the headlines: ‘Exposed – Yokes Buy Yokes On the 40A’. And then there’s the ‘OhmyGod! In Bed With Jedward! ’ photo session.
By the time we start work on Episode 3, there are film crews following us, filming me filming them. It’s all a bit mad, but it’s great. It’s Innovation Ireland at its sexiest.
Continued next month
© Roddy Doyle 2011
