For those that do not know who they are, Foil Arms and Hog are an Irish comedy group over 10 years old who have performed at popular festivals such as The Edinburgh Fringe Festival, The Vodaphone Comedy festival and many more. They have appeared on many Irish TV programs too.
The group is made up of 3 members, Foil is Seán Finegan, Arms is Conor McKenna and Hog is Seán Flanagan.
Often a comedian can get old. Their jokes don’t change and they regularly rely on sexism, racism and crude comments. Foil Arms and Hog rely on none of that. They are constantly improving themselves and feed off of each other.
If you are interested in learning about the meaning behind the peculiar name, here is a link talking about it further.
Swines Show in Cardiff
The show me and my friend attended was their 2nd to last showing of the tour in Cardiff. This show had had 3 dates in total because of COVID. When it was finally able to ahead, the date was 6.5.22. Over 2 years later than planned. Who knows what happened in those 2 years to those ticket holders!
Their last 2 showings of Swines are on the 27th and 28th May in Dublin, Ireland. The show on the 28th is in aid of Ukraine.
(A few spoilers ahead for those who haven’t yet seen it!)
Empty seats
A massive part of their show is interaction with the audience. It does not matter where you are sat, even if you do not give them eye contact, there is still a very big chance they will grab you to join in.
Well FAH used empty seats in the hall to their advantage too!
Hog made a joke that there were so many empty seats and insinuated that possibly something morbid had occured. Everybody laughed but then Foil & Arms motioned for those who wanted to move to “better” seats could do so. They meant that those sat at the back could move closer to the main stage, as there were plenty of seats available.
There was a lady called Marian who was sat with her friend in the 2nd row and they moved to the front row!! Foil pointed it out and everyone in the hall had a great laugh and joke about it. Marian wasn’t to know she was going to be the butt of so many jokes!!
Hog started to walk through the audience and stole some handbags. He even got the crowd to rate 2 handbags, putting them against each other!
Age appropriate
To attend these shows, you have to be 14+. Even then, you still need a parent or guardian over the age of 18 to attend. There was a small family of 3 sat on the left hand side of the hall and Foil spotted the youngest member of this family. He walked up to them and said hello. Asked how old she was and she said 10. He said, more to her parens, that the show is 14+ for a reason. Foil then said: “So I am going to ask you again ___, how old are you?” There was a small pause of silence before the young girl replied confidently that she was 15. The hall erupted into laughter and Hog exclaimed that she had added a year for good measure.
Marian and Sylvia
FAH like their audience to sing their theme-tune to bring them on stage. But Foil said he wasn’t going to be on stage to play conductor.
At this point, Hog and Arms are walking amongst the audience.
They picked out Marian. She kept saying no and no again. Even when pleaded with! Foil pretended to have a bit of a tantrum with Marian, almost childlike which got him rather a few laughs. She still wouldn’t do it. So they moved on after giving up with Marian.
Sylvia was sat in the middle tier and on the aisle. Foil sat on the steps and gently asked her to be the conductor. She, like Marian refused but when given lots of encouragement decided to go for it.
This was all before the show had begun! These lads had effortlessly warmed their audience up in less than 15 minutes. It takes skill to cause over 400 people to split their sides in that time.
Stage and audience presence
To talk about everything in the show would take far too long. They packed so much into what felt like 5 minutes.
Their stage presence and audience presence is phenomenal. Some comedians are too afraid to interact with their viewers. These 3 LOVE it!!! They not only involve us from our seats, but they bring us on stage with them.
In the Swines show, there is a part where Hog plays a character that is 40 years plus and has run off from his parents to get married. Hog legs it into the audience and grabs Sylvia, mentioned earlier. She was very adamant she wasn’t moving so Hog let her be and grabbed a different older lady from the front row.
“You’ll do”, Hog said while the audience laughed and he ran off with this poor lady.
Later on, she appeared at the end of the show as part of the hen party!
Just a little personal note, I have watched Foil Arms and Hog for over 3 years. They never fail to make me laugh and they are just genuinely funny and lovely people.
If you would like to learn more about them, follow the links down below. Have you been to one of their shows? Which of their videos do you like on YouTube?
Check them out on the links below!
Talitha's Travels 