Comedy
Interview
Stuck In A Lift: Pat and Faye Shortt
The father-daughter duo discuss U2, condiment pairings with cockroaches and comparisons with Brad Pitt.
Sensational characters are nothing new to Pat Shortt. Whether it be portraying a whole town’s worth in Killinaskully or memorable once-off appearances, you can be sure to see him with a fantastical, and yet sometimes alarmingly accurate, persona. Nowadays, alongside Faye, these characters are seen by hundreds of thousands on their social media pages and thousands live in their shows around the country.
Ahead of bringing their show ‘Knuckle Down’ to Dublin this March, we sat down with the pair to get their thoughts on the most pressing questions of the current day.
Who would you most like to be stuck in a lift with?
Pat: Faye, who would you like to be most stuck in a lift with?
Faye: Oh, I thought that was your answer. Gemma Collins. Love her. Do you know who Gemma Collins is?
Pat: No idea, no. I know who I’d be stuck in lift with. A fella that fixes lifts. He’d be able to get us out of there quick enough.
Who would you least like to be stuck in a lift with?
Faye: You (Pat, not the writer).
Pat: A fella who doesn’t know how to fix a lift. Or maybe Jeremy Collins, is it?
Faye: You, probably because you’d be hounding me talking about work so often.
Pat: Yeah, we’d get a bit of work done.
What’s the weirdest interaction you’ve ever had with a famous person?
Pat: Well, I was in Lillie’s one night, and I was in the toilet. And there’s a fella beside me who looked fierce familiar, and I couldn’t figure it out. I said to him, “are you in a band by any chance?” He said, “will you ever f*ck off?” and he walked out the door. It was Adam Clayton from U2. It was just that I couldn’t figure it out. I thought I knew him, and I just couldn’t figure it out. That was my interaction with Adam Clayton.
Faye: I had a night out once with your man from The Crown, randomly enough, and he was going out with Lily James at the time. Who’s your man from The Crown? The actor. Very famous. (Matt Smith) He’s a gorgeous looking fella, isn’t he? Wild night. I met Lily James, so I was shocked.
What did 12-year-old you imagine that you’d be doing now?
Faye: Not this at all. I probably wanted to be doing something like this, but didn’t think I’d ever be working with you. I had no intention of working with you at all, but it’s a pleasant surprise.
Pat: I wanted to be playing in a band with Adam Clayton until he told me to f*ck off in the jacks in Lillie’s.
What’s the worst advice you’ve ever been given?
Faye: Dad always gives me this advice, he goes, “get over it t’f*ck”. And it’s just the most Irish dad’s thing ever. Something could happen, and you could be nearly in tears. And he just goes, “get over it t’f*ck”. So by my age, I had this done to me, this done to me, this done to me, this done to me”, and you’re like, that’s not that’s not making it better.
Pat: My father just always said to me, “get over it t’f*ck”.
Faye: And I’ll probably be saying to my kids as well.
What’s the skill that no one else knows that you’re great at?
Pat: I like fishing. Fly fishing. I haven’t done it for years, but I used to be a good flight fisherman.
Faye: I can play the piano, but not well. But I don’t think a lot of people know that I can even play the piano.
Pat: I can make ashtrays out of long play albums. You melt them down. People don’t understand that.
Faye: I can give you a pain in your ear.
What’s your controversial food opinion?
Pat: What’s controversial food? Like food that’ll argue with you?
Faye: What do you like that other people wouldn’t think is nice?
Pat: I’m not that old yet. But you will have to explain things to me. I’d eat anything. The only thing I can’t eat is kidneys. I’d eat everything else. I’d eat cow’s tongue, liver, anything. You know, all sorts of offal. I love cooking and and you can make anything out of anything. And sometimes, offal is really good. Liver is good for you.
But kidneys, man, I don’t know what’s going on with people. Steak and kidney pie, you know what I mean? It’s a big thing. My wife, she grew up in England, and she just loves steak and kidney pie, and I would vomit the thoughts of it.
Faye: Dad would have a chicken burger now in the morning for breakfast. Or he’d have a steak. Or if there’s a kebab left over. There’s no there’s no concept of, you know, dinner versus breakfast. It’s a free-for-all. Or sometimes you have sweets in the morning, or pizza.
I don’t like sauces that much. So mayonnaise on anything would kinda give me the *shudders*. I have that food phobia thing, you know, when you kind of I can’t even listen to people chew. It’s a real thing for me. It’s hard life.
Especially when it’s a kebab in the morning?
Yeah, it’s tough. I’m a fussy eater. I’m actually going to Vietnam over the summer. So that that’s one thing I’m nervous about. Don’they eat the live cockroaches?
Pat: You don’t have to.
Faye: But I’m like may as well, you know, when in Rome except Vietnam.
Just no mayonnaise?
Yeah. No mayonnaise. Live cockroach pizza, mayonnaise on the side please.
Who do you often get told you look like?
Faye: Him.
Pat: Brad Pitt. My wife tells me that every day.
What film have you re-watched the most in your life?
Pat: Mine is ‘Whitnail And I’. I love it. I think it’s fantastic movie. And I I got to work with, Richard E. Grant a number of years back, which is cool, because it’s my favourite movie.
Faye: Mine is ‘Elf’.
Pat: She hasn’t got to work with Santa yet!
Faye: The scenes, when I’m watching them, it triggers something in my brain, like I know these scenes off-by-heart. But I can’t do them for you right now.
Do you have any superstitions?
Pat: Let me think about it. I used to have one when I was young. It was a ‘Holy God’.
Faye: You can’t say it.
Pat: I just said it. And I don’t go to ‘Holy God’ anymore because I realized there isn’t any superstition.
Faye: We just got cancelled there in the space of two seconds.
It’s been reported that Brad Pitt based his accent in Snatch on Tom from Father Ted. Have you ever taken inspiration from Brad?
Pat: Apart from looking like him? I go into the barbers every time I want a haircut and put a picture up and say, “could you make me look like that?” I think he might have based it on me. He might not, but it’s a nice thing to be said about me.
Faye: Do you ever get people recognizing you thinking you’re Brad Pitt?
Pat: No. No. Now that you mention it, no.
It doesn’t go the other way around?
Pat: No. It doesn’t.
Pat and Faye Shortt bring their hit show ‘Knuckle Down’ to Dublin’s 3Olympia Theatre on 20 & 21 March 2025. Find tickets HERE.
