The Heraldy Press

Hugh Grant, Chevy Chase and the lads.

A young Irish actor has returned from Hollywood disappointed, after failing to land a role in the upcoming ‘Expendables 4’ movie. Dinny ‘Dinnie’ Longshanks (61) from Tullamore, County Offaly, was in L.A. for four grueling hours of auditions, where he had hoped to star in the film alongside legendary movie tough guys such as Arnold Schwarzeneggar, Sylvester Stallone, Woody Allen and the guy who plays Ian Beale in Eastenders.

Said Dinny: ‘I made it down to the last 168 auditionees for the role of ‘lad who does give Wesley Snipes a high five, only to be shot by some other lad’. It was not to be however, and his thick Mullingar accent (he just moved to Offaly in 1982), prevented him from winning a role in the film, with producers deciding instead, on an elderly woman from Longford.

Having acted since his late teens, Dinny was well-known in parts of his home town, due to his (uncredited) role in a Flahavans Oats television commercial back in 1973, and since then was twice in the audience at ‘Live at 3’, a daily TV show aimed towards elderly residents of Ireland in the 1980s, though he failed to get on camera on either occasion. Since then, his acting career has consisted mostly of his ‘adult’ mime act, working in gentlemen’s clubs throughout the Irish midlands.

Having decided to bypass Irish TV (‘A load of oul’ sh*te’), Dinny, or Dinnie, as he prefers, has ventured towards the big time, and once he landed on American soil, set out to meet his heroes, though he admits to having been ‘fierce disappointed’ to find that Robert Mitchum, Gregory Peck and John Wayne had all passed away. He did however, get his picture taken with a Renee Zellweger impersonator, and bought all the Sigourney Weaver fridge-magnets that one shop stocked.

Of his recent experiences, Dinny, an occasional movie-goer, who claims to have seen over twenty films, says he was emotional when seeing one of his action heroes in the flesh for the first time. ‘I was just walking down Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills looking for somewhere to have a slash, when who did I see, but the lad who played Willis, on ‘Diff’rent Strokes’, I think it was him, he was a fair bit away, and in a car that was goin’ fairly fast, but he looked a good bit like him, and sure, it’s a good story to tell the grandkids, or someone else’s grandkids, because I’ve none meself’.

‘The Expendables’ franchise, which features most of Hollywoods action-hero stars, such as Morgan Freeman, Hugh Grant, Nathan Lane and Chevy Chase, is a  comedic remake of the dark 1970s Scandinavian epic ‘Not I, Says The Raven’, which starred a young Burt Reynolds as a rodeo rider who goes on to wow the world of gaelic football.

When we asked what roles he was to audition for next, he said in a desperate, albeit miserable attempt at humor; ‘I’d love an oul’ ham and cheese roll now!’ Clearly a comedy career is not in his future either.

Words by Bosco Coppell, Picture by Dorothy’s Angling and Shooting Store (Lingerie Department)

A famous dictaphone, yesterday.

A young dancer from Ireland has failed to mask his disappointment, having been paired with a rather surprising entrant for the next series of ‘Dancing With The Stars’. Dessie ‘Desmond’ Hennessy (61), from north Mayo, hence the unusual spelling of his name (though spelled ‘Dessie’, it’s actually pronounced ‘Steve’), has battled for almost three years through a series of auditions to get to the televised rounds of the enormously popular TV series, where a dancer gets to perform with someone reasonably famous.

Speaking with The Heraldy Press, Mr. Mulgrew (he’d changed his name by the time we started this paragraph) said; ‘When I saw the possibilities for this season’s show, I was excited to say the least, I mean, I could’ve wound up dancing with Alanis Morrisette, Tom Selleck, one of the lads that did the voices for popular ’80s kids show ‘Fraggle Rock’, or the tall man from the ‘Police Academy’ films. To end up with that b****cks, Kim Jong-Un, probably my least favorite of all the recent dictators, is a bitter disappointment to say the least’.

In what has proved to be one of the most unpopular decisions that the show’s producers have come up with in recent years, this season’s episodes are to feature political figures from around the world paired with members of the dancing public. Already, one contestant, Harry ‘Harry’ Svenson from Connecticut has withdrawn from the show, as he disagreed with his partner, Iceland’s Minister for Agriculture Jim O’Dwyer’s controversial views on goat-herding, while another episode featured a cat-fight between Lorraine Pearson, a cosmetologist from Wisconsin, and her partner Jimmy ‘Jim’ Pederson, Oslo’s deputy lady-mayor, when one said the other had a massive arse.

The North Korean leader meanwhile, not particularly well-known for his dance moves, nor renowned for his friendliness or interest in dancing-themed reality shows from the western hemisphere, has insisted that his scenes be filmed either inside his home in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or in a field behind his uncle Maurice’s pub in County Clare. We tried to contact his office for an official statement with regards to the show, but our there was no way we’d spend nearly four dollars for an international call just to speak to him, sure look at the state of him.

‘Dancing with the Stars – Season 96’ will begin filming tomorrow morning. The DVD, featuring outtakes and bloopers, including one hilarious scene where a lad can be seen reading Shania Twain’s autobiography, and another which shows two lads from Wexford drunkenly dancing to no music ‘for the craic’, will be released in a few years. Probably.

Father Diarmuid Fitzgibbon-Lopez, a 17-year veteran with the order of Jesuit Brothers in Lucan, made the claim last Thursday to a group of rowdy onlookers as he was on his way to a darts competition (in which he came ninth).

According to Jimmy ‘James’ Burke, who is reported to have been at the scene, the popular priest is said to have shouted; ‘Will yiz ever get a life yeh pack of useless b***ockses. Come see me in forty years, when I’ll be calling the shots in the Vatican’.

Another witness, Dessie ‘Desmond’ Higgins, who asked that we not use his name, and who hails from ‘one of the new estates behind the chippers near Tesco’, said of the alleged incident; ”This carry-on is nothing new to us, sure last November, Sister Frances-Mary and Sister Xavier-Rose were throwing stones at us from the roof of the convent, with one of them, I’m not sure which, calling us a gang of Presbyterian arseholes’.

Father Diarmuid, well-known throughout the holy lands of Clondalkin, Lucan and Blanchardstown due to his role as accordionist with the all-priest band, ‘The Gorgeous Avengers of Saint Francis’, and as a coach of the Lucan under-7s hurling team, is no stranger to controversy.

In 1977, before entering the priesthood, he and his uncle Edmund, a one-time runner-up of the All-Ireland Altar Boys Championships, were handed suspended prison sentences for attempting to hijack floats on the village’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Evading the local Gardai for almost nine minutes, the master-criminals were apprehended by then-legendary Superintendent Dan Sweeney (now Garda Esther Dominguez), who said; ‘The priesthood saved him, if it weren’t for his calling, he’d still be acting the gobshite round the village today’.

He was twice suspended from duty in the 1980s, once for vomiting (‘mostly accidentally’) near Bishop Stevie Steinberg of Sligo, and again, having been caught on tape saying that the Bible was; ‘Brilliant, apart from all that Noah’s Ark stuff, sure that’s a load of oul’ shite’.

Having risen in the ranks to Assistant Parish Priest in West Dublin, which means he’ll now be able to leave mass before communion, the ambitious Father Diarmuid has made no secret of his career hopes. With two of his uncles having been parish priests in the ’60s, and his own father retiring from the priesthood while still a teenager, history, ambition and a love for holy things, could well see this Irishman reach the Vatican before the end of the century.

Words by Bosco Coppell, Pictures by Samantha’s Cufflinks and Cupcakes.