The State of Us podcast<\/a>, he wondered: “Maybe that girl went on to have a family and led a good life and helped other people.”<\/p>\nAsked whether he is aware of amount of joy he brings to so many, John said he is “probably not”. <\/p>\n
He added that he still thinks of himself as “John Linehan, motor mechanic”, who “just did this for a laugh”. <\/p>\n
“I started McFettridge because people thought I was just naturally funny, you know, and even if you were saying something serious they would laugh,” John said. <\/p>\n
“It’s not hard work, you’re just being yourself and it’s just as simple as that, I just love doing it.”<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1765835709_216_grey-placeholder.png\")
![\"John](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/e1e5ef30-dc12-11f0-8b18-cf73a8501a17.jpg.webp.webp\")
<\/p>\n
John Linehan has appeared in 34 pantomimes at the Grand Opera House as May McFettridge<\/p>\n
The character of May started life as a caller to a radio show hosted by Eamonn Holmes in 1987. <\/p>\n
“Downtown radio asked [Eamonn] if he would do a couple of weeks as a guest presenter and he was just looking people to ring in and he asked me,” John recalls. <\/p>\n
He remembers how on his first appearance May did not yet have a second name so when Eamonn asked for one he played for time while flicking through a newspaper.<\/p>\n
He said he across the name of Olcan McFetridge, an Antrim hurler, “and that was her started”.<\/p>\n
Now, nearly forty years on and at the age of 72, John said he has no intention of quitting any time soon. <\/p>\n
“If the punters want me and the part is there for me and I’m fit enough to take it.<\/p>\n
“A couple of years ago I had a very bad back and I just got me second knee done so I’ve two titanium knees. <\/p>\n
“But then somebody said you couldn’t be from north Belfast and not have your knees done.”<\/p>\n
Navigating the Northern Ireland divide<\/p>\n
John says that when he started to get gigs as May McFettridge he always made sure to play to both sides of Northern Ireland’s divided society. <\/p>\n
He said he would “love to think” that May played a small part in Northern Ireland’s peace process, and tells the podcast the story of doing a spot at the funeral of a friend who admitted involvement in the loyalist organisation which planted a bomb that John and his wife narrowly survived. <\/p>\n
John and his wife Brenda were upstairs in a bar in Belfast in 1973 when directly below them the bomb went off. <\/p>\n
“It was like a big slap in the face and I heard Brenda screaming, I put my hand down to the right hand side, she must have been on the floor I thought, I just pulled her back up and I walked forward but there was no floor there.<\/p>\n
“We were the first two near enough to be taken out of the rubble.”<\/p>\n
But John said he “never blamed anybody” and never wanted to “get my own back”.<\/p>\n
Drag Queens<\/p>\n
John said that despite regularly donning a dress and wig he “by no stretch of the imagination” relates to the world of contemporary drag. <\/p>\n
John said that May shares more in common with the likes of Dame Edna, the character created and portrayed by Australian comedian Barry Humphries. <\/p>\n
“He was great and that type of humour is mine because he was wicked. <\/p>\n
“He wasn’t afraid to tell whoever he was sitting beside and maybe 16 million watching: ‘The years haven’t been good to you love, have they?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Finn PurdyThe State of Us podcast John Linehan is best known for his character May McFettridge, a Belfast…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196253,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[458,146,85,46],"class_list":{"0":"post-196252","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-israel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Pacemaker](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/7813a620-dccf-11f0-8119-7990a250d38d.jpg.webp.webp\")
Pacemaker<\/p>\n