F**k A*t, Let's Dance

Paul Farren talks to Michael McElhatton, Ian Fitzgibbon and Michael Garland about their upcoming Rats movie Spin the Bottle, and finds out how art became a dirty word.

I'm sitting in the Shelbourne Hotel, a place so plush it makes me feel uncomfortable, so I tend to avoid it and it's certainly the last place you'd expect to see Rats of Paths to Freedom fame. But here he is in his normal guise of actor-writer Michael McElhatton. Gone is the sublimely ridiculous hair cut, the gawkiness and the inner city Dublinese, replaced by an eloquent fellow as amiable as his screen persona. He, his co-writer and director Ian Fitzgibbon and producer Michael Garland have come along to talk about Rats and his big screen debut Spin the Bottle, which is being released later this month.

McElhatton tells me how his creation first evolved. "He was this character I used to do just for the laugh really then I had an idea for a short film and Ian said let's do something with him. Originally we saw it as a short half-hour drama. Then we put the doctor character in to mirror him and it developed from there". What suggested to Fitzgibbon that Rats had potential was the awful poetry Michael introduced to the Rats dinner party performances, a trademark of his Paths to Freedom incarnation, which produced the catchy rap number "Celtic Tiger". Not unlike some of Damien Dempsey's songs.

The full article is printed in Film Ireland 95