For more than 30 years, Alan Hughes has been a household face and a panto star. He talks to Donal O'Donoghue about his lust for life, his fear of death and the secret to a long-term relationship.
"I’m terrified of dying," says Alan Hughes of a fear that has permeated the broadcaster’s life for many years, shaped by the losses in his life.
Orphaned at the age of 10, years later a sister and brother would die from cancer. Yet despite all – or perhaps because of these personal tragedies – the Dubliner knows how precious life is and so resolved early on to make the most of it.
"When you see your sister and your brother die at a youngish age, you just want to grasp life and live it," he says.
And he has. For 25 years and counting, he has been part of the Irish TV world, hosting the breakfast show, Ireland AM, and for 30 years, he has been panto royalty, as the evergreen Sammy Sausages. "I have been openly gay on Ireland AM for 25 years and I’ve been an openly gay panto performer for longer," he says with no little pride.
We meet mid-morning at Virgin Media’s TV studios just off the M50. Hughes, who has been up since daybreak, looks more youthful than his years (he was 60 last October), laughing easily, relentlessly upbeat. As he sips his milky tea ("there’s a cow in there"), he reels in his 25 years on breakfast TV and how much has changed in that time.
"I was one of the first openly gay men on Irish TV," he says of the show’s debut in September 1999. "It was a very different time, of course. I remember my first job, in RTÉ, was with a show called Talkabout, 30 years ago. The producer knew that I was gay and suggested that maybe we just ‘Calm it down and not be telling anyone!’ And when I first met Karl (Broderick, his husband) in 1993, the law decriminalising homosexuality had just been passed."
Hughes grew up in the west Dublin suburb of Ballyfermot, the youngest (by 12 years) of six children (two girls, four boys). "I was the babby and spoilt," he says. He was just 10 years old when his parents died within six months of each other. His mother Maureen, died in his arms one quiet afternoon.
"She had been unwell, so I was in her room, just lying with her, and she passed," he says. Some six months later, when Alan was not present, his father Kevin died – partly, he reckons, from a broken heart.
"It was a shock for all the family," he says. I try to imagine the effect of such a loss on a young boy, and how it would subsequently shape his life. Hughes believes that it instilled a real understanding of that hackneyed line that life is not a dress rehearsal.
"It made me very determined," he says. "And I’ve always been a glass half-full person."
From the get-go, he was determined. Following the death of his parents, he was packed off to Enniscorthy to live with his brother, Brendan, but life down the country was not his thing. He scrabbled together enough money for the bus fare, told no one and hightailed it back to Ballyfermot, prompting a major search. The Gardaí were waiting for him at the door of the family home when he arrived.
"I stayed in Ballyfermot after that and went to school there," but he concedes he was not the most academically inclined. "I got seven Ds in my Leaving, all passes sure, but college was not an option," he says. He was already dipping his toe into showbiz as an extra on TV and film. "Mainly because it was really good money," he says. "You’d get 80 quid or similar into your hand at the end of the day."
He was 17 when he first went to New York in the early ’80s, following a fellow he met in Dublin. The relationship didn’t last but the experience, stepping from grim, grey Ireland into the bright lights of the Big Apple, remains vivid.
"Studio 54 was gone but a nightclub called Limelight had just opened and a lesbian friend was able to get us in, so you’d be sitting near Liza Minnelli or Bette Midler or whoever. For a young fellow from Ballyfermot, this was just ‘Wow!’ I felt so much alive in those nine months or so, discovering all the gay bars in Greenwich village. However, it was also just at the start of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and I remember the gay bathhouses closing and adverts on the subway of tumbling headstones. Fortunately, I was never personally affected by HIV, but it left its mark on so many."
He first met Karl Broderick on September 30, 1993. "And we’ve done everything big since on that date," he says. "We got married on September 30, 2011, in the Round Room in the Mansion House in Dublin and last year, we had a party to mark our 30th anniversary together." Both decided early on they didn’t want to have children. "We agreed that it wasn’t for us."
For many years, the couple have worked together to stage popular panto productions – Karl as the writer, Alan as the comic foil Sammy Sausages – in Dublin. "There are people who know me as Sammy Sausages from the panto rather than Alan Hughes from the TV. My first panto was in the Gaiety with Twink 30 years ago – talk about a steep learning curve! So, I’ve had this twin path career with TV and theatre. I’ve done panto even through the pandemic when we filmed the performances."
What makes a long-term relationship work? "There is no magic ingredient, and we did split up for eight or nine months," he says.
"When we got back together, I said to Karl, ‘This is it for life now!’. I suppose we just get each other. I try to make him laugh. Karl suffers a lot with depression and social anxiety which he has spoken about publicly. That can be very taxing on both of us and was very difficult over the years. Some days he’s flying, working well, and other days, he just can’t get out of bed, and I sometimes don’t know what to do in that situation. Karl gets riddled with guilt about that but while we have had those ups and downs, we’re still together after 30 years and hopefully for another 20 or more. Maybe I might get to 90?"
The year after he married Karl, his sister, Doreen, died from ovarian cancer. She had always been a big light in his life. "When Doreen first met Karl she said, ‘I really like you but if you do anything on him, I’ll come and haunt you!’" he says and laughs. One of his dearest possessions is a photograph taken with Doreen by VIP magazine shortly before she died.
"Every time I see that I have this little quiet chat with her. Now when something good happens for myself and Karl I say ‘Ah they are all looking down on us – Doreen and David (his brother, who died from lung cancer in 2017), mam and dad and my dear friend Noel O’Brien. I do believe that there is a God and hope there is a life after this one where I’ll meet all those family and friends I’ve loved. Maybe I have that hope because I’m terrified of dying."
Despite the losses in his life, he never had any therapy or counselling sessions. "There are times I think maybe I should have gone for counselling or that I should I still go, but I think I’m OK," he says. "Or maybe I’m not. Maybe I’d have one session and totally break down and find that I’ve been holding all this in for all my life and should have grieved more. Maybe that’s also why I like to keep busy. I must have something to do each day."
It is, I suspect, a family thing. For her 80th birthday, his sister, Maureen, went to see U2 in Las Vegas. Did he do anything special for his 60th?
"Karl and I had the big party to mark our 30th anniversary," he says. "It wasn’t for the 60th because I didn’t want to tell anyone I was 60. Of course, people knew, but in this business, people tend to categorise you because of your age and not your ability. Of course, that pigeonholing is much worse for women."
Later this month, he and Karl will travel to Sitges in Spain, a regular home away from home, for the seaside resort’s annual Pride festival. He will also be participating in the Dublin festivities for the Pride month of June.
"It has become this family event, not just for the LGBTQ+ community but everyone," he says.
"Things have changed so much, and the parade reflects that. But there are also homophobic attacks happening outside the George (Dublin’s oldest gay bar) so it seems some things will never change. Years ago, I would not have been fearful walking down the street if there were a group of lads coming towards us but now, you’re thinking something might be said. And it happens. If you’ve been on the telly for so long people know you and say things like ‘there’s that big queer off the TV!’ Karl gets upset but I say, ‘Just leave it’ because I don’t want to get a punch in the face."
He loves being on screen and stage as much as he ever did, for the buzz but also the feedback. "Thousands of people, from grannies to grandkids, come to see me on stage and embrace the character of Sammy Sausages," he says of his little contribution to diversity.
"It gives me hope that all those kids see that Sammy Sausages has a husband, not a wife. Kids have asked me that and they go ‘Oh really?’ and I say ‘Yeah’. I’ve always tried to normalise being gay rather than going out with placards and lecturing to people and all the rest."
Alan Hughes is just being himself, with all his hopes and fears, living life as fully and as long as he can, not that he wants to make too much of a fuss about the latter. "Stop saying my 60th all the time!" he says and laughs.
Beauty & the Beast is at the National Stadium, Dublin, this Christmas. More information: panto.ie
