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Catastrophe

Everyone on Twitter knows who Rob Delaney is — the acerbic Boston-bred comic is one of the platform’s most ubiquitous voices — and everyone across the pond is in love with the smart, sharp humor of Irish comedian Sharon Horgan. Now, the two comics have joined forces for the hilarious new Amazon sitcom, Catastrophe. Even though Delaney and Horgan are both Twitter superstars, don’t expect the social media platform to have anything at all to do with the show.

“I would say that Twitter has literally nothing to do with the show or how we write it or anything,” said Horgan. “The only thing it had to do with anything is that I started following Rob because his tweets made me laugh and Twitter is a great way of connecting people, so apart from that I’d say there is literally no connection.”

“I would agree. Sometimes, I think mostly we just talk about real life situations that we’ve been through or nightmare scenarios we can imagine,” added Delaney. “If I’m doing something on stage stand up-wise at the time, I might bring that to Sharon and say, ‘Hey, this is something I’m thinking about.’ You know? But, primarily it’s just things that we’ve really experienced or hope we never do experience because they’re too scary or something; [and we] make that into a comedy.”

Catastrophe has a fairly simple concept: an American man and Irish woman’s London fling turns into a long-term relationship when they discover that she is pregnant. Adding to the insanity are their eccentric friends, their even more eccentric families, and some increasingly bad news from her doctors. Catastrophe doesn’t just approach these everyday dramas with a glint of mischief, but unflinching honesty. It shows the scary side of being a woman with a “geriatric pregnancy.”

Horgan explained, “I think I’ve sort of gotten to an age where I sort of don’t want to make something of no consequence anymore. Like, I love really funny things, but I’m not sure I want to write something that is just plain funny.” She added that, “I’ve never really had the experience that we had when this show came out which is people writing to say thanks for doing that — like thanks for making that scene and thanks for saying that geriatric pregnancies exist and a whole bunch of stuff that women have to deal with.”

Even though Catastrophe is about two people learning to build a life together, its humor is rooted in sharp barbs. We asked Delaney and Horgan how they were able to navigate this balance in a time when many sitcoms either can come off as either too mean or too cuddly.

Delaney teased, “Well, that’s our secret sauce. We can’t…”

Horgan laughed. “That kind of is the secret sauce! But I guess it’s any of the stuff that we really like comedy wise has got both of those things and I think we’re good together for that reason.”

Horgan and Delaney mused that it might have something to do with her Irish background, or the fact that the duo is male/female and from different sides of the Atlantic, but she quickly added, “I think it happens because we really have a sort of major dislike for anything that might be considered gentle in comedy… I don’t really care about comedy scenarios unless there’s proper, funny, laugh-out-loud moments. And I don’t really want to see a sweet, gentle thing happen unless I’m laughing my head off as well, you know?”

Catastrophe also features a savagely funny supporting turn from Carrie Fisher, who played Delaney’s character’s crotchety Boston mom. So, what was it like working with Princess Leia?
“Amazing!” Delaney enthused. “I mean, just amazing. You know, it was such a privilege. We didn’t think it would work out and it did. So, nothing but superlatives to say about that.”
“We were just, like, giddy,” said Horgan.

“Oh, yeah.”
“We were giddy from the moment she turned up. We were like idiots. We were just sort of following her— like, I was just trying to get into her room.”

Delaney laughed. “You got into her bed!”

“Yeah, I got into her bed. I was, like, trying to make her laugh. I just immediately felt like ‘I want to be her friend’ and she didn’t necessarily want to be my friend, but we got on really well and we had a really fun time.”

Catastrophe‘s release on Amazon Prime means that fans can either sample the show an episode at a time or binge it in one go. While Horgan happily admitted that she binge-watches everything from Mad Men to Transparent to Game of Thrones, Delaney quickly proved that he was the marathon man of binge-watching.
“For me, it was the BBC drama Happy Valley. That’s the most recent thing I’ve binge watched, which I enjoyed very much.” He then boasted, “And then I’m probably among the not huge number of people who watched True Detective in one sitting.”
Horgan exclaimed, “One?! How?!”
“Yeah, on a London to LA flight.”
“Okay.”
I was very concerned. “No bathroom breaks?
“No bathroom breaks,” Delaney deadpanned. “I definitely…I mean…I’m bearing the scars of it. I’m damaged psychologically from having done that, but it was a lot of fun and…”
“Six hours?” Horgan asked.
“Eight!”
“Eight hours in one?!”
“Yeah. I mean the back of my eyes probably blend into my brain. It was really stupid. I was in pain, but it was worth it. I’d do it again and I’ve watched again it since.”
You can watch the entire first season of Catastrophe tomorrow on Amazon Prime.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfccan1k2_4]

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[Photos: Everett Collection]