Slam team rider Pat Coghlan is the latest legend to contribute to our series of “Visuals” interviews. Find out what moments have made an impact on Pat’s psyche, and discover more about one of the most enigmatic characters exploring what our city has to offer…
Words and interview by Jacob Sawyer. Pat Coghlan out filming for the new Slam video. PH: Rich Smith
I clearly remember a quote that appeared in an 80s issue of Thrasher; it could have been some griptape art, or it may have been an envelope in Mail Drop, but it never left my memory. The quote was “where others see a wall, I see a playground”, a philosophical aside celebrating the broader scope of a skateboarder’s worldview. With the notable exception of Conor Charleson, there is nobody on the streets of our capital to whom this quote is more applicable than Pat Coghlan. His city scouring missions involve scanning for spots most of us would skate past without a glance, and we look forward to any new clips showing the rewards of his efforts, which have been appearing frequently. The tail end of this article alludes to the fact that there are more holstered for a variety of forthcoming video projects, so expect to see more specimens from his wild trick bag unleashed very soon.
Pat’s early intro to skateboarding came via his favourite cartoon characters. Dennis the Menace and Bart Simpson planted the seed, but early attempts at getting to grips with learning were short-lived. Almost a decade elapsed before videos mining the Skate 3 video game for a plentiful array of funny glitches started to appear, and revived his interest. From the opening jam at Lloyd Park, a training ground set to be the most local from home base in South Woodford, he was sold. Pat’s university course then made Bristol a second home and played host to a big chunk of his progression. To this day, with his degree in the bag and North East London as home, he still strikes a balance between the two cities, finding inspiration from both scenes and their surrounding architecture. Our forthcoming Listen In audio version of this article will expand more on Pat’s origin story. This article begins by exploring some of the most impactful visuals stamped on his mind and their influence on his skateboarding approach and experience.
Read on to find why Louie Barletta’s part in the enjoi Bag of Suck video made such a lasting impression on Pat, an enduring obsession he continues to watch regularly. This video part showcases Louie’s unique and diverse ability, has led to Pat making some of the tricks in there his own, and opened up avenues of musical exploration. Learn why a flat ground trick at Southbank from Nick Jensen’s Lost & Found part continues to reverberate around his cranium, and remains the prime example of an elusive manoeuvre. Pat’s photo selection is a one-of-a-kind Mike Arnold Grey cover that makes use of a redundant piece of London infrastructure by way of a trick he too enjoys the nuances of. The final visual piece is Blondey McCoy’s first pro board for Thames, a Mark Gonzales-designed surprise that Pat was present for, and got to skate himself as the most recent flow rider on the Thames roster.
The closing section delves into what Pat has going on right now, his return to skating after injury, video projects wrapped and ensuing, his life as a model, and the situations it has found him in, developing and realising a play, and more. Enjoy the read, and keep them peeled for more confounding clips in the near future.
Louie Barletta – Enjoi: Bag Of Suck (2006)
I first saw this part via a Thrasher Classics on YouTube. I can’t remember when I first watched it exactly, but I’ve watched it almost daily since. It’s just awesome, it’s a perfect part. If I could have filmed any video part, it would be this one. Obviously, I can’t film that because it’s already been done, but there’s so much to talk about with it, from the trick selection to even the spots in it; there are some wacky spots in this part. The outfits that Louie wears are all thrifted, just these crazy jumpers and things like that. Even before seeing this part, my mum had been taking me to charity shops forever, and I’ve always had that kind of aspect, so watching this, I felt so seen through that. Then the cherry on top is that he is that good at skating, and he’s just pure fucking around. He goes from doing a switch back smith on the handrail, which might’ve been one of the first ever done, to a clip of him pushing halfway up a big bank to double flip and coming back down. It’s just the whole atmosphere, energy, and everything about that part. I’ve been obsessed with it since I first watched it, and I even watched it like five times while I was waiting to connect on here.
I’ve just been a big fan of enjoi, and obviously, Bag of Suck is such an influential piece of skate media that has always been so exciting to me. Jerry Hsu’s last part is monumental. It’s that kind of thing where it’s exciting, it’s interesting, you don’t quite know what’s coming next, and a lot of the things are deceptively so difficult. Like Louie’s nose manual Indie grab, that’s one where you kind of think you could just fling that out, but anytime I’ve tried it, you’re on your head, and it’s like, how are you doing that in such a loose, fun, and awesome fashion?
Then there are other things like the tail block slide and then foot off, where he’s wearing the Davy Crockett hat, he even slams on that and has just a massive smile on his face, and you can just tell that kind of rings through with his approach. There’s a video where he’s talking through the part and gets to where he does an invert in that really steep, whippy bowl, where he rolls away really surfer style. He’s talking about how everyone else skating the bowl was proper hesh mode, taking shrooms, and foaming at the mouth. He was none the wiser, just thought they were having a great session, and wanted to get in on it too. I think that just sums it up. He talks about the frontside hurricane down that white hubba as well, that’s such a great trick, a hurricane on a hubba that’s properly locked in, it’s lovely. He also talks about a road trip from Barcelona to Finland, travelling across the country with a group of people.
I idolise this part, and the stories surrounding it, everything to do with it. It’s that quirkiness that I guess I’m attracted to, and the authenticity within that quirkiness. A lot of what is in there is magic, but it’s kind of incidental magic in a way that you can’t recreate. It wasn’t like he set out to make a part where it needed to be different from what everyone else was doing; it just is what he was doing, and what he was doing was different. He is this kind of charismatic, yet quirky figure, who’s got such a charm to what he’s put to film. One specific trick that inspired me in this part is one I’ve learned recently. Louie does a bluntslide finger flip to fakie into a bank. I’ve just always thought finger flip tricks are really cool, but I’ve only figured them out recently, and I went to film a finger flip variation. In the clip where he does the bluntslide finger flip, he’s wearing an Argyle sweater vest, and I have an Argyle jumper that I wore out to the session that day without thinking. I’d taken it off while I was trying the trick, and it wasn’t working as it should have. So then, a few tries in, I put the jumper on, kind of started singing Rod Stewart, and it came within a couple of tries after that.
“I idolise this part, and the stories surrounding it, everything to do with it. It’s that quirkiness that I guess I’m attracted to, and the authenticity within that quirkiness”
Because of this video, I love Rod Stewart now, that song specifically. When I first started at uni, it would always be one of my favourite songs. A lot of my mates, whom I made friends with at university, are quite big music nerds. I’m not the most, I’m into my music, and I know what I like, but I’m not a music nerd in that way, where you can kind of have that conversational exchange about songs and go really deep into it. There would always be an almost social game when they’d have the aux or the Bluetooth speaker. “I’ve got this artist, do you know this? Do you know this?”, and I wouldn’t be privy to a lot of those conversations. But the one song that would always come through, where it was like, this guy knows music, even though I didn’t, was when I put on “Young Turks” by Rod Stewart. They were just instantly charmed by it and wondered how they had missed it. So for me, it became a thing beyond the part, and beyond skateboarding for me. It’s now also that early phase of uni song where if it’s played at the end of the night, that’s the song where it’s like, okay, we’ve landed.
The only enjoi board I actually skated when I was younger was the Ben Raemers collab one with Slam, with the artwork where he’s on a tricycle. I nearly picked that as my favourite graphic. I was a big [Ben] Raemers fan as well. I remember my mates and I when we were younger, going to an enjoi signing at Slam. I wish I’d asked this question, but when we got to Louie, one of my mates was like, “That part was amazing, what was with that switch back smith?” And then he was like, “I have to do some real tricks!” Another one of my favourite tricks is one of the most ridiculous, you know, when you throw your board down upside down and then catch it the right way up? To do that down a gap is bonkers; he does it down a big three and just somehow rolls away with it. Sometimes I’ll try that at the park, and what am I doing? Just chipping my board!
Before I forget, there are also a lot of good wallrides in there, which you don’t tend to think of when you think of that part, but there’s the wallride nollie out ender in Barcelona. There’s the front three wallie as well, that one’s nutty, where he lands straight into the grass. There’s also a wallie transfer that he does where he jumps over a pole afterwards in a kind of full star jump position. I did a wallie at a spot recently, and I was telling myself I was going to find something like that to jump over when I landed, but we forgot in the heat of the moment, hahaha. Alongside a couple of others this has always been my favourite part but no one really brings up Louie Barletta; you don’t hear him as much in conversation as I would like. My friend Cam, who was in London for a few months from Australia, told me, “Pat, your skating reminds me of Louie Barletta”. He’s the only person who’s ever said to me. I hadn’t told him that I liked Louie or any of that, and that’s the only time anyone’s ever brought it up in conversation. I was just very, very chuffed that someone ever said that.
Nick Jensen – Blueprint Skateboards: Lost & Found (2005)
This trick is perfect, it’s so nice. It’s a flat ground trick, but just done so well, and it’s a difficult flat ground trick. After I selected this trick, I wasn’t sure if I meant the slow-mo one at the start or the one in the line because they’re both great, but for different reasons. The one in the line is more boned and possibly more popped, but there’s something about the way he catches that slow-mo one right at the start where it’s just so perfect and so controlled. There’s no reality where he didn’t land that nollie frontside flip. It sticks out to me because it’s a classic trick, done really well, it’s Southbank, and it encapsulates that kind of flowing style of tech skating that Nick Jensen does so well. The song as well, I know this is about the trick, but that Travis song in the background comes together for such a moment. I think I wanted to ground things with something a bit more classic as well, because I think my taste can divert, appreciating something technical, effective, without going too crazy. It doesn’t need to be a spot, it doesn’t need to be a mind melter, it can just be good skateboarding done well, and sometimes that’s the most interesting thing.
This is another one where anytime I’m trying that trick on flat, I’m thinking of the song. I was about to start singing, but I’m not going to because we’re recording, hahaha, but it’s one where I’ll start singing the song whenever I do it. Rich [Smith] gets excited when I land this trick. It’s one that I normally stick. I landed one after a trick the other day, so whenever that footage is out, it will appear that I’ve got them every try. Nick’s one is such a testament to his style and skill, where it’s just done so perfectly, I can’t think of a better example of that trick. This came out a bit past the time of Cool Britannia, but it almost feels like skateboarding’s moment culturally, in the same way that you had in 90s film, television, theatre, and music, with the British sensibility being the cool one, the tastemaker, having that aesthetic moment, and I feel like that bookmarks in Lost & Found. The way everything comes together is speaking to that cultural moment, and its place within skateboarding, even though it’s a bit delayed from that moment in a wider cultural sense. I also really like the way he’s dressed in the entire part, the cut of jeans, the style of jumpers. I think that’s really come back around in kind of modern dress sense, it’s a timeless look, and it looks awesome.
“It sticks out to me because it’s a classic trick, done really well, it’s Southbank, and it encapsulates that kind of flowing style of tech skating that Nick Jensen does so well”
This is the Blueprint video I come back to the most, specifically this part. It’s free range Southbank, it’s before we got caged in. My earliest memory of skating there is trying to ollie the seven. My brother was really good at cricket at one point, and he was in a club that practiced at the Oval on Saturdays. My dad would drive up to the Oval, we’d leave him to practice cricket, and then we would get the tube from Oval over to Southbank, and I would try to ollie the seven. I think for weeks on end, I just didn’t land it. I’d just go for two hours, fall over, leave, and come back the next week, or we’d go to House of Vans sometimes as well. It’s an important space for any skater in London because it kind of takes that bit to get used to and learn to skate, that I kind of can undervalue it as a space sometimes when there’s an easier park or somewhere to go. I spent this winter skating Southbank a lot more than I had before to come to terms with it. To make that little Slam edit for Instagram skating Southbank, and doing it in a session, it kind of felt like, okay, we are an adult skateboarder in London, we can get our tricks here, we can get some stuff done. There’s kind of that feeling of accomplishment to have been a child that can’t do anything there to then come back, actually throw down, and know the space, know the spot, know the people, and kind of feel part of that community.
Mike Arnold – Grey Skate Mag (2017) PH: Rich West
This is such a great photo, it’s just so absurd, but in the most beautiful way ever. There are so many elements to it, like the fact that the nose and tail are snapped, and the fact that there’s a phone box without the glass in there. It captures prime Atlantic Drift, which was the era. I think it was the fifth episode that was the hippy jump one, and it’s almost like they decided. Those videos had been showcasing a quirkier UK skateboarding to the world for a few episodes, and they were location-based before then, the St. Paul’s one, for instance, and then it would be different locations. The destination was the trick for that one; it was hippy jump. It wasn’t just hippy jump tricks, because there were other things sprinkled in there, but it was almost like they threw the reins off and said, right, let’s get as absurd as possible, let’s do some mind-boggling shit right now. I think that Mike’s hippy jump through a phone box just sums it all up there. It’s like that alternative approach to spot hunting. The board’s just rolling, Mike’s going through the phone box, it’s such a striking image. I was fuming this morning. I was trying to go through my old Grey mags to find this cover, and I’ve lost that issue, even though it’s my favourite cover. It was a photo on my wall when I was younger, so I think that’s why it’s been lost to time.
“This is such a great photo, it’s just so absurd, but in the most beautiful way ever”
I was actually cycling around this morning looking for something similar. You know how bus stops have a similar thing? Sometimes you find them without one on top, and for a while, as kind of a tribute thing, I was going to try and do one of those. Then I realised it would be hilarious if you did the same thing, but you really cleaned the glass so that the glass was completely see-through, but in footage it would look like it wasn’t there. Then you roll up and smack into it, and just have that in the clip. I don’t know how much the council would like that, but I think it’d be absolutely hilarious, hahaha.
I definitely remember seeing the mag before the footage and just thinking what? It’s one of those; it captures that thing that I love, in the kind of more creative, quirkier zone of skateboarding where it takes a second to process what’s going on. When you’re presented with a skate photo anyway, it will take a second to process where the board position is, or the legs to lead you to what the trick name is, or what’s being done. But to see a photo like this is so cool, it kind of encapsulates Mike skating a lot as well, because there’s a lot of stuntman stuff, you know what I mean? He’s like an acrobat and a skater in one, it’s awesome. I was talking to my friend Ginge about my picks, and he said that he preferred Mike’s Free Mag hippy jump cover, but I felt I had to pick this one because it’s been burned into my head since I’ve seen it. I always forget that it’s a hippy jump 180, the way the body contorts, he almost has to go 180. It’s like everything is being done in service of the spot, which makes it beautiful; it’s very spot-specific, which is something I enjoy, as well.
Mike Arnold with the inspo. Pat’s very own hippy jump cover of Dogpiss Issue 14 & a more recent 360 flip hippy jump shot by Ginge
I love a hippy jump because it gets the blood pumping in a way that I don’t know if it should. There’s something quite scary about being away from your board like that, and then you get such a rush for landing it, especially if it’s into a bank or something like that. It’s such a fun game to find those spots because you’re kind of judging the height and the bar. It’s athleticism in a way because I’m not a very athletic bloke, but I can jump higher in a hippy jump than I can from running and jumping, or just jumping from flat, which I’ve never understood, but I’ve known that for years. I know it’s simple, but it’s effective, and can sometimes be really difficult. It’s that perfect kind of trick where it can be applied in so many ways, but you can’t apply it to a ledge, I guess.
I think a favourite Mike [Arnold] trick would be the airwalk down Lloyd’s. I think that was a stroke of genius; it’s so good. His whole Lloyd’s part as well, to skate Lloyd’s that well, and with that diverse bag of tricks, and then to just throw an airwalk down the set in the middle. I think that trick was awesome.
Thames – Blondey McCoy Pro Model by Mark Gonzales (2025)
This board stands out for what it represents, really. I chose this board because, in a bit of a selfish way, I was there when it was announced. When I was younger, I always loved Blondey’s footage, and I was a big fan of Blondey. The mates that I started skating with, who kind of quit skating, were into skating through things like streetwear. They were big into Palace, and they’d always have Palace boards and buy them. In my head, I thought Palace is cool, but I’m waiting for a Blondey board. I’ll get a Palace board when they do the Blondey one finally, and then obviously that never happened.
The board was revealed at Gabbers’ video part premiere, and that day itself was kind of surreal because it was on the day of my graduation from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, which was another thing that I really wanted to do but wasn’t sure if I could. It’s quite a competitive school to get into, I didn’t know if I was going to get onto this Master’s, do the course, and then I kind of got scared that I wouldn’t be able to finish it with work and stuff going a bit crazy last year. But I went straight from my graduation ceremony at the Old Vic to see the premiere of the new Gabbers part in the offices. I’m too much of a fan of skateboarding, to the point where it can be a hindrance, where the anxious 14-year-old that’s aware of all the names and things that are happening in the room can get a bit lost in himself, but it was an amazing, special day. It felt like the board was a really long time coming, so to see it, for it to be in that room, just to have been there, and on top, it’s a lovely graphic and a really fun shape. All of that I’m just so grateful for, it didn’t feel real to be there. I’ve always been such a fan of Blondey and his skating, to have that pro board finally happen, and to be able to skate it, and see it be revealed was just amazing.
The [Thames] offices are so cool, it’s like its own little world on Lexington Street, with custom wallpaper, the massive stained glass, and the front room. It’s all so nice and its own world, and that kind of representative nature of the board is why I chose it. The idea of being surprised by your own company is so awesome. I have one of the boards, it’s in the corner of my room right now, it’s a bit chipped from streetskating, but it’s displayed now, skated of course. I’m now on Thames flow, if you pardon the pun, I’ve been getting boards from Thames for the past however many months, and for one that feels completely surreal. Skating for Slam feels surreal; skating for anyone feels surreal. I’m currently on a mental setup. I can’t go to the park without someone mentioning it, but I’m on the 8.25” one with wheel well cutouts, but I’ve got nine-inch trucks, so it looks like a monster truck, and I absolutely love it.
“I’ve always been such a fan of Blondey and his skating, to have that pro board finally happen, and to be able to skate it, and see it be revealed was just amazing”
I was always impacted by Blondey’s trick selection, style, and outfits. I feel like that’s what I’ve kind of been saying for why I pick everything. I hadn’t been self-aware of that, but it’s that kind of thing. He has a brilliant impossible, and I’ve always loved that trick. I almost picked Dylan Rieder’s impossible tail grab as my favourite trick. I’ve just always thought the way that trick functions mechanically looks awesome, and Blondey’s got such a good one. The kind of spots that he’ll skate are always so London, and so you know it’s English just from the surroundings. His style is lovely, and then just the ability to skate in those kinds of outfits. Not being afraid to whack on a collar, or just lean into those things. He’s always been a kind of proprietor of a lot of sick wallies and things like that, and being able to skate wallride spots. I just remembered something, actually, when I was younger, I was trying to do a wallride shuvit on the London wall spot, the roundabout with the bank to wall. I tried it for about two hours and didn’t land it. Then, about two days later, I saw that Blondey had posted an absolutely perfect one on Instagram, and I was like, “Ah, fuck!”
One part that I always come back to is Blondey [McCoy]’s Freedom Nineteen, just the way it comes together with the song, the edit, the outfits, the trick selection. I remember really distinctly the line he does at Fulham Ledges. Once again, I was skating that spot, and I was singing the song as I was skating the spot to get me in the zone of being there; it’s a bit of a habit. When I’m skating, I’m constantly referencing skating, if you know what I mean? It’s kind of involuntary, I’ll start going back to places, tricks, or songs or things to do with the spot, because I was flipping between that song, and you know when Casper [Brooker] was announced on Baker, there was the clip of him doing the back smiths with the pop out and the fisheye going under to show Casper. I kept miming playing a string instrument with a bow in between tries to do the “Street Hustle” song.
You’re back skating after an injury. What happened? Were you out for a while?
I was out for a couple of months, I’d say I’m at like 80%. I bruised my meniscus, so it wasn’t a break or a tear. It was on the ropes, it really swelled up, and I couldn’t skate for ages. But this is another point, another time I was actually referencing. So the Gabbers Pro boards, I’ve skated a few of those, and I’ve got this thing, right, where it’s like the way he can slam, and get through, and get things done. If you’re skating his board, you’re not allowed to be scared of a trick that you’re trying because it’s just like…he’s getting it done, what business do I have? It’s nowhere near as big. On top of that, I like a boardslide, and I don’t skate street rails often. I had stumbled across a street handrail with my mate Nick [Vieweg], we’re filming some bits together at the minute. We had tried to go to a drop-in that I wanted to skate, but there was a car in the way. It was one of those ones where you’re at a loose end trying to find spots, and I just stumbled across quite a perfect handrail.
I thought it would be so funny if I just boardslid a rail in the midst of this footage, just to be funny. Then I kind of just started trying it, and it felt like it was there, and then just stuck one. Then I did one of those tries where you don’t bring the board with you. I nearly sacked, but to avoid sacking, I almost humped the air, and it flung me directly forwards onto my knee. It just completely smacked it right, and I was like, “Oh, we’ve done something,” but I’ve been seeing the physio a bit, I’ve got my exercises to do, but we’re back, we’re skating, and enjoying it.
Rich Smith said he was meeting you the other day. Have you got new filming projects in the works, or are you just easing back in at the minute?
Rich took a little break after the Slam and the CAFE videos because that was quite an intensive amount of filming to have both those projects come out back-to-back. But we’re starting off on getting properly into the new Slam video, and we’ll see how that shapes up. I have been filming a bit with my friend Nick [Vieweg], who actually filmed my first video part. It was a VX part on Vague, but he has switched to HD, and we kind of collected a few bits last year, so we thought, alright, let’s just hammer it. We’re kind of in the zone now where he’s pretty much done with the timeline, but if I land something good, he’ll take someone else’s clip out. So I’m trying to absolutely bastardise everyone, hahaha. No, I’m just trying to fit in as many bangers for that as possible.
Then my friend Joe [Poulter] who I filmed the Grey part with, is filming an edit that is going to come out around the same time. We’ve kind of always been filming, and he’s now just moved back to Bristol, so I’m due a Bristol trip to get some stuff done. I’ve not got a centralised part at the moment, but I’ve got a lot of footage floating around. It’s not as centralised as a part, but what I’ve got, I’m very happy with. There’s still stuff, but it’s been quality over quantity recently, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
“I’ve not got a centralised part at the moment, but I’ve got a lot of footage floating around… it’s been quality over quantity recently, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing”
Chances are that Pat was humming Travis during the frontside nollie flip celebration of this riverside wallride. Tricks filmed by Jules Foskett
Do you foresee any skate tourism in your immediate future? Is there any destination on your bucket list?
I haven’t got anywhere planned, actually. I went to New York a few years ago, and that was my big skate tourism one, where I got to skate pyramid ledges. Where’s the Max Palmer fountain? Brooklyn banks has just reopened, let’s go! Maybe Barcelona, Louie skates there a lot in Bag Of Suck. It’s maybe not the most obvious spot, but there’s a wavy round bar that he does a front smith on, I really want to skate that, his wallride ender is in Barcelona, that’s a classic place to go.
Is modelling season about to get busy?
Hopefully, hahaha. I don’t know, it’s ebbs and flows. Sometimes I feel insanely busy and unable to organise time with it, and then sometimes I feel like Hugh Grant’s character in About A Boy when he’s trying to kill time through the amount of Stella’s that he drinks. It’s hard to predict really. It’s genuinely a game of waiting, seeing what messages arrive, and seeing where you’re needed, right up until the very buzzer of it. Some of the biggest jobs I’ve done, I found out about at like 8 p.m. the day before we’re shooting, and then it’s like a twelve-hour day. I really like that about it, but then it can also be hard to manage your time and organise. It’s kind of sod’s law that if you’ve got something you’ve planned for months in advance, that’s probably when a job’s gonna come up.
What’s the craziest modelling situation you have found yourself in?
I think trying to get back from Korea. I got sent to Korea for a day job so I spent more time on the flight than being there. This was when I was quite new to studying at the Old Vic, and it was our first production week. I was meant to get back because my script was going into rehearsal, so I had to arrange with the school that I was going to miss rehearsals. Part of the training is being a writer in a room, and learning how to adjust a script, and then taking on feedback and notes with the director as actors are working on a piece of new writing. But, I had been asked if I wanted to go to Korea for a job so I had to wrangle with my tutor. I told them what I had been offered and promised I would be back for the performance.
I got out there fine and did the job. Then I’m being taken back, I’m taken to the airport really early in a cab. It was absolutely beautiful; it had been snowing like crazy overnight. So I’m getting driven out of the city and into the Korean countryside, and it’s this beautiful snowy landscape. As we start getting closer to the airport, it starts being more snowed in, the fucking road is completely covered in snow, and I start getting a bit suspicious. I still go through check-in when I get there, but suddenly my flight’s cancelled. Then I get a phone call from the producer asking me to just stay there, but I explain that I need to be back for this thing. What do you mean, stay here? Is there no flight I can get on? Then I had my agent talking with the producer on the phone; she’s fuming with the producer because he contacted me directly to just stay for a bit. An inordinate amount of time staying there felt a bit horror thriller-esque.
She managed to get them to book me a flight home, but I’m still not doing well because the whole airport’s snowed under. That flight is then delayed by five hours, then seven, and then twelve. So I spent twelve hours sitting in a random corner of the airport, which at some points was really fun because they have the indoor smoking areas where you go in and you’re coughing from just breathing. In the end, I had to get back via Helsinki. It had a layover, which was about twice as long as the flight. But before it even took off, when we finally got to the plane, I fell asleep. I woke up seven hours later, and we were still in the fucking airport! It was absolutely brutal! We made it back in time for the performance at the end of the week, so it was completely worth it. Korea is amazing, but it was stressful.
rooftop roll in to the passenger window of an abandoned car. PH: Ginge
Did your course at the Bristol Old Vic involve lots of different disciplines and then specialise in drama writing, or did you study writing off the bat?
Yeah, I just studied drama writing, so it was just focused on playwriting, but with elements of screen and radio that we did as well.
I saw that you took a script you developed there and brought it to life recently. How was that experience, and were you happy with the outcome?
Yes, it was amazing. I work with a director whom I met at the school, and it was kind of us cutting our teeth after uni. We’re in pre-production for doing a proper run of it at the end of August, which is really exciting. We haven’t got the venue properly yet, but it’s going to be two and a half weeks, performed at a off West End venue in London. I’m a bit nervous, actually, but that performance was really good for us to get out of drama school and go straight into doing our own project. It’s the same script, Bell End, but I’ve completely redrafted it. Having it performed like that was a nice homecoming, having everyone from London come and see what I’d been working on. But it was also that moment of watching it as a production, as opposed to a piece of writing.
That was where I knew I needed to iron out some stuff. I could see that the heart of the piece was good and the characters there, but in terms of the actual dramaturgy of it, there were a few things that were a bit iffy. For a few months after that, I genuinely struggled with rewriting because I ended up just going back from the ground up. So it’s the same play but it’s like Southbank, I’ve replaced a lot. It’s still the same play but with different parts. It was a great practice in drafting, and actually seeing what putting on a fringe production in London is like. It was a matter of professionalising it and using that training, and working with actors and directors from the Old Vic to do something outside of Bristol and kind of get it going. It’s going to be back on, which is even more exciting; it’s going to be going for longer, and hopefully we’ll sell tickets.
The original poster for Pat Coghlan’s “Bell End” play designed by TJ
Is that rewriting because you’ve got to know the characters better and you’re aware that the actors playing them could do more?
It’s just kind of being more efficient, but not losing the heart of it. It would take me a whole draft to find out what needs to happen. But then, once you actually get what’s happened, you can do that in increasingly quicker ways. You can get there more efficiently. It’s looking at a piece of dialogue and thinking, does this progress the story, or does this reveal something new about the character? They are two main things you need to carry through, and you’re gonna give yourself writer’s block if you’re trying to do the first draft like that. But then to see it 3D, you can become a lot more brutal and detached from things you might like for different reasons. You’ve almost got that catharsis, that was performed then, that has been done there. Yes, I really like how that monologue is performed individually, and the actor did a great job, but in service of the wider story and the emotional payoff of this piece of performance, it’s doing nothing, so goodbye. At least I got to see you once.
Was that the second full-length play you’ve realised?
Yeah, I did a full-length play at undergrad through the Drama Society, which I wrote and directed with my friend Joe, who’s actually relocated to London as well, which is nice.
Will you be pursuing more theatre projects? Are you writing currently, and would you like to work on stage yourself?
I’d like to give a bit of acting a go. I did the Grove DIY thing a few years ago, which was really fun; that’s the last proper acting I did. It was the Midsummer Skate play at the Grove DIY, and I was playing Puck, which was really fun. I feel like the modelling stuff is transferable to acting, where, for a lot of that stuff, they’re just asking you to do very low-level acting tasks. I feel like that skill is reawakening in me a bit. I’m basically desperate in my head for writing. I know that I’ve got to get another new play drafted by the time that Bell End is on, so that if industry attention does appear, I’m not just a one-trick pony, and I’ve got something else new and exciting that I want in development, and can go. I need to have that in the chamber by then. I’m putting too much pressure on that first draft at the moment. I just need to get into the free writing. I’ve got an idea about a series of vignettes of someone who lives on a canal boat as he journeys through it, as the root of my next idea. I get attracted to location and character way before I get attracted to plot, in terms of writing.
What’s the most exciting thing on the calendar right now?
Probably the play, the play at the end of August, that’s the biggie, that’s going to get there. Then I’m excited for footage to come out around May, a couple of my homies’ projects are coming out around May, and they’ve got a couple of tricks that I think are bangers, if you’re allowed to call your own tricks bangers, haha.
Thanks for your time, Pat. Any last words?
A million thank yous. Thanks to you for the interview. Thank you to Rich [Smith] for helping to arrange this, and filming over the past years. Thank you to Joe for filming. Thank you to Nick for filming. Thanks to Ginge for shooting me. Thank you to James for introducing me to Rich in the first instance and indirectly getting the ball rolling with Slam City Skates. Thank you to Blondey [McCoy]. Thank you to everyone at Slam, a million thank yous, and thank you to Wes [Morgan] at Rock Solid as well.
Be sure to follow Pat Coghlan on Instagram, and keep an eye on Thames and Slam City Skates for future footage. Big thank you to Ginge for the photos.
Related Reading: Backstory: Jude Harrison , Rich Smith “Ben + Pat” Interview , Louie Barletta Interview , Backstory: Nick Jensen & Mike Arnold
Previous Visuals Interviews: Jacob Rosenberg , Gabriel Summers , Mark Suciu , Hayley Wilson , Mike Sinclair , Tom Delion , Sam Narvaez , Tyler Bledsoe , Daniel Wheatley , Braden Hoban , Jaime Owens , Charlie Munro , Lev Tanju , Jack Curtin , Ted Barrow , Dave Mackey , Jack Brooks , Korahn Gayle , Will Miles , Kevin Marks , Joe Gavin , Chewy Cannon