Arthur Mathews

Arthur Mathews attended the College of Marketing and Design before (eventually) joining the Hot Press Art Department in 1985. After a spell in The Joshua Trio, he began writing for television along with fellow Hot Presser Graham Linehan. Among the shows he has created and/or written are Paris, Toast Of London, Father Ted, Hippies, Big Train, The All New Alexei Sayle Show, Brass Eye, Harry Enfield And Chums, The Fast Show, Black Books, Val Falvey TD and the film Wide Open Spaces. He has written a ‘bogus memoir’, Well Remembered Days (John Peel’s favourite book of all time!), as well as The Craggy Island Parish Newsletters, Father Ted – The Complete Scripts (with Graham Linehan), The Book Of Poor Ould Fellas (with Declan Lynch), Angry Baby, and Toast On Toast. As a cartoonist he contributed ‘Charles J. Haughey’s Believe It or Not’ to Hot Press, ‘Doctor Crawshaft’s World Of Pop’ to the New Musical Express and ‘The Chairman’ to the Observer Sport Monthly. In the theatre, he created and co-wrote the long running musical I, Keano. On radio he has created and written The Golden Age and Men About The House for BBC Radio 4 and Luneen Live (co-written with Paul Woodfull) for RTÉ. He regards his annual Border Fascist contribution to Hot Press as one of his finest achievements.