Two icons.
While there’s no such thing as a ‘weak’ character in Derry Girls, it’s possible to say that in terms of the best character from Season 2, Orla McCool is leading the race.
To be fair, we all loved Orla right from the off – she was the first voice that we all heard when she was reading Erin’s diary – and after spotting a cheetah on the beach, genuinely believing that Kamal is a real person, and going bananas for step aerobics, she’s easily one of the most hilarious characters that Lisa McGee has created.
It’s a credit to Louisa Harland’s skill as an actress that she’s so good at creating all the little quirks and traits that make Orla so great.
Anyway, Miss McCool has really upped the ante in Season 2 because her wonderful-weirdness is off the scale.
When she’s not delighted at the apparent site of a polar bear, proclaiming that Protestants hate Abba, or offering her opinion that wine tastes like blood, she’s continuing to be the most carefree, bonkers, and lovingly-loopy character in Northern Ireland.
Truth be told, there’s a childlike innocence to Harland’s character that’s incredibly endearing because she’s just happy to be herself and nobody else.
Hilarious and gifted at delivering one-liners, the same could be said for another famous Irish character that was a little bit of a space cadet, Father Dougal McGuire and in the most recent episode, a little bit of Craggy Island came to Derry with Ardal O’Hanlon playing the role of mammy’s boy Eamonn.
Of course, O’Hanlon previously worked with Lisa McGee on her other show London Irish but it’s clear that his work in Derry Girls made an immediate impression on the cast.
In fact, Louisa Harland told JOE that she based a large part of Orla on Craggy Island’s most gormless priest.
“The days that Ardal was on set, those were the days that when anybody didn’t need to be there, they were there! Everyone was watching him behind the monitors. The whole art department came to watch him work. We were all so excited to have him here. I said to him that I feel like Orla really came from Dougal in some way and that he’s a stalwart of my childhood. He was so great and it’s a real honour. Dougal was definitely an inspiration for Orla and I tried to convince him of that. He’s such a great guy,” said Harland.
Dougal and Orla, together?
This would definitely happen!
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