Barrytown, north Dublin, December 1989. Bak-ery hand Bimbo has received his redundancy notice when he hits upon the idea of the century - he'll buy a van and sell fish and chips. As 1990 gets underway and Ireland qualify for the World Cup in Italy, Bimbo offers to make Larry, his oldest friend, a partner in his venture. The festive spirit takes hold in Barrytown's pubs and front parlours as television sets tune into the football. And Bimbo's brainwave becomes a reality.
The van is an instant success, but as business prospers, their friendship falters - and threatens to turn violent. An unhappy Bimbo gets in the van and heads out towards Dublin Bay The Van is Roddy Doyle's third and final story of life in the Barrytown trilogy. He borrowed the mythical place-name from a Steely Dan song, and Barrytown first saw the light of day in Alan Parker's The Commitments (Miramax have now hired Colin Welland to script a sequel). Doyle's second book The Snapper, which Stephen Frears brought to the screen with the same skill he used to craft films like Dangerous Liaisons and My Beautiful Laundrette, opened Directors' Fortnight in 1993.
Both The Commitments and The Snapper were produced by Lynda Myles. The re-teaming of Irish writer (Doyle), English director (Frears) and Scottish producer (Myles) meant that the production proceeded with all the ease of a happy repertory com-pany. Frears describes returning to shoot in Ireland as "going back home".
Apart from some stints of studio work at Ardmore, the film was shot mainly on location in Kilbarrack, north Dublin - which is just a couple of streets away from the old Snapper location.
"This was Barrytown exactly as Roddy Doyle described it," says Frears. "The only difference between then and now is the scale. Snapper was a small, simple, moving story. The Van is altogether bigger - huge in comparison - and that's why we're making it for cinema, not television."
The all-Irish cast is headed by Colm Meaney, who has gone through the entire trilogy in varying roles.
"It would be difficult to imagine Barrytown without Colm Meaney," says Myles.
The Barrytown stories have succeeded in the most unlikely markets, and Myles attributes their success to Doyle's ability to cross cultures, tap into basic human emotions and mine universal truths. "It's not just the English-speaking audiences who appreciate him," she says.
"The Japanese, for example, loved the films, and The Snapper was among the top 20 in France that year. It was nominated for a César, and in Spain won the Premio Goya as best European film. Roddy does have this gift for striking a basic chord in everyone."
"The Van is probably the funniest of the three stories, yet it goes into much darker areas - the humiliation of unemployment, middle age, problems with male friendship…but it's never grim," claims Myles. "We are not in the weepie business here…whatever the emotion is - anger, grief, frustration, violence - at some unexpected moment it all becomes hilarious; it's very Irish…and very Roddy Doyle."
The Van was written in 1990 the year of the World Cup and although it is not a story about football, the game is important to the pace of the film and provides a background of excitement and tension, as the Irish team progresses through the preliminary stages and into the knock-out phrase of the competition. "You must remember that Ireland's greatest export is people and when their team goes through, everyone stands up to take the credit," laughs Doyle. "So it's the ideal happy-days-are-here-again background for Bimbo to start his business."
Like its two predecessors,The Van is character-driven. "In The Van I wanted to deal with two middle-aged men and the humiliating effect unemployment has on their families and their friendship," Doyle continues. "They've known each other all their working lives, [and] when Bimbo asks Larry to help him run the chipper, they feel even closer.
They're real parners at last. But it's the business which destroys their friendship."
Doyle says he never saw The Van as a buddy movie when he started to write it: "As the script developed, we began to think of it as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and before we were through, we were openly referring to it as 'Thelma and Louise with Chips'."
Humour is always in the wings when Doyle's involved, but actor Brendan O'Carroll, who plays Weslie in the film, identifies The Van not as Irish comedy, but Irish drama.
As he says, it's impossible in Ireland to have comedy without tragedy or tragedy without comedy.
Nick Thomas
Prod Co: A Fox Searchlight-BBC Films presentation of a Deadly Films Production
Prod: Lynda Myles
Dir: Stephen Frears
Scr: Roddy Doyle, from his own novel
Ph: Oliver Stapleton
Prod des: Mark Geraghty
Costumes: Consolata Boyle
Ed: Mick Audsley
Cast: Colm Meaney, Donal O'Kelly, Ger Ryan, Caroline Rothwell
Running time: 102mins
International sales: The Sales Co (Europe), Fox (rest of world)
