You may have heard of 'Hardy Bucks', but then again you may not have. It probably depends on your age profile and how much you watch YouTube. Over the past year a bunch of lads from Co Mayo have become a genuine Irish internet phenomenon. Earlier this year they won RTE's online Storyland competition, so the Hardy Bucks are hoping their creation can make it onto the small screen.

The competition ran over five stages of voting, after an original entry of close to 150 was pared down to ten before public voting commenced. The 'Bucks', as their legion of fans tend to call them, won four of the five stages and came second in another stage.

They managed to harness the internet and get some momentum for their campaign going. Their Facebook page has over 20,000 fans while the first episode of their show on YouTube site has amassed close to half a million hits. It is an incredible achievement considering they only went live on YouTube in October last year.

Their brand of humour is modern in its docu-drama style and very rural in its depiction of the lives of two best friends, Eddie Durkin and Billy 'Buzz' McDonnell. Set in the fictional town of Castletown, the show follows Eddie and Buzz and their mates around town. Buzz describes the pair as 'two hardy bucks around town . . . fighting, drinking, shmoking'.

The 'fighting' normally involves their nemesis, the scurrilous 'Viper' who stalks the lads at every opportunity and plenty of bad luck follows the lad's search for 'wemin' as they bid to escape the narrow confines of life outside Castletown.

Nobody involved in the project had any experience at all before they filmed the show in three days last year. The result is a stunning success and is far funnier than most new comedy that RTE has shown over the last few years. It is closest in style and tone to Trailer Park Boys, a popular comedic mockumentary television series that focused on the misadventures of a group of trailer park residents in Canada.

If you haven't heard them yet, check them out when they play Cyprus Avenue on Tuesday 9 February at 9pm. Tickets are €10. More information is available from www.cyprusavenue.ie.

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