''Meet Your Neighbours'' is an Irish character-based comedy

sketch show Sketch comedy comprises a series of short, amusing scenes or vignettes, called "sketches", commonly between one and ten minutes long, performed by a group of comic actors or comedians. The form developed and became popular in vaudeville, and is ...

which was first broadcast on RTÉ Television in 2011. It was written by and starred the comedian P. J. Gallagher.

Premise

Set in a close-knit

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

suburb, the show comprises sketches involving exaggerated parodies of

Irish people The Irish ( ga, Muintir na hÉireann or ''Na hÉireannaigh'') are an ethnic group and nation native to the island of Ireland, who share a common history and culture. There have been humans in Ireland for about 33,000 years, and it has been c ...

from all walks of life in various situations familiar to the Irish. The comedy is derived from the audience's self-deprecating understanding of either themselves or people known to them. These sketches are presented to the viewer in a mockumentary-style format with the characters often speaking directly to camera with other more visual comedy elements such as

slapstick Slapstick is a style of humor involving exaggerated physical activity that exceeds the boundaries of normal physical comedy. Slapstick may involve both intentional violence and violence by mishap, often resulting from inept use of props such a ...

and physical comedy.

Main characters

Amongst the main characters are: Ger and Pat, a conjoined pair of twins, one of whom is gay while the other is an alcoholic heterosexual bigot; The Dub, a gobby

Dublin GAA The Dublin County Board of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) ( ga, Cumann Luthchleas Gael Coiste Contae Átha Cliath) or Dublin GAA is one of the 32 county boards of the GAA in Ireland, and is responsible for Gaelic games in the Dublin Regi ...

fan full of his own self-important opinions; Séamus and Mary, a mixed race husband and wife who have a problem with foreigners; Mr. and Mrs. Roger Balfe, an upwardly mobile couple obsessed with plastic surgery; and Mrs. O'Donoghue, a granny obsessed with cake.

Cast

P. J. Gallagher plays all of the main characters in the show. It also stars Simone Kirby as Auntie Maureen and Mrs. Roger Balfe, Gearóid Farrelly as Pat (the conjoined twin), Eoin Whelan as Pascal, and James J. Akpotor (AKA Tiny James) plays Séamus.

Production

Originally titled ''Meet the Gallaghers'', a

pilot episode A television pilot (also known as a pilot or a pilot episode and sometimes marketed as a tele-movie), in United States television, is a standalone episode of a television series that is used to sell a show to a television network or other distri ...

was filmed in December 2010.Telly-Box
. Gearóid Farrelly website. Retrieved on 3 January 2011. A full series of six episodes was subsequently commissioned with filming taking place in Dublin throughout 2011.

References

External links

''Meet Your Neighbours''
at RTÉ Television {{RTÉ Comedies 2011 Irish television series debuts Irish television sketch shows RTÉ original programming