Mario Rosenstock

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Mario Rosenstock born 31 August 1971, is an Irish actor, comedian, impressionist and musician who is best known for his parody music singles and his role in the Gift Grub comedy series on Irish radio station Today FM.^[1]

On his paternal line Mario is partly of German-Jewish origin and his grandfather was in the German Army and fought in World War II. His uncle is Gabriel Rosenstock, one of Ireland's most notable Irish language poets and member of INNTI with Michael Davitt (Poet), Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill and Liam Ó Muirthile. ^[2]

He first came to the attention of the Irish public playing the role of Dr. David Hanlon in the soap Glenroe.

However he is now best known for the popular Gift Grub segments which have featured on the Ian Dempsey breakfast show on Today FM, since 1999. Gift Grub is a series of comic sketches, impersonations and parodies that have featured Rosenstock assuming the personae of Bertie Ahern, Colin Farrell and Roy Keane amongst many others.

He performed an impersonation of José Mourinho in a parody of a song from the musical Joseph. This spread like wildfire on Internet message boards and eventually it was played on a Sky Sports broadcast. Mourinho heard the song and liked the impersonation so much he had Mario perform a private show for him and the Chelsea squad.^{[citation needed]} Mario later released, with Mourinho's blessing, a single version of José and his Amazing Technicolor Overcoat. He has also released another song (I Sign a Little Player or Two) on the internet with a parody of Mourinho in an interview then breaking into song.

In 2005 Rosenstock starred as Keano in the comedy musical play I, Keano, which concerns Roy Keane leaving the Republic of Ireland national team before the 2002 FIFA World Cup.^[3]

In 2005, he achieved the Christmas number one single in the Irish music Charts, with a parody of Will Young's song 'Leave Right Now'. The parody concerned Roy Keane's controversial departure from Manchester United Football Club and his fallout with Alex Ferguson.

In 2007, he started work on a puppet comedy sketch "I'm on Setanta Sports", which is presented as a parody weekly football talk show hosted by José Mourinho. Rosenstock voices all the puppet characters on the sketch, including the main character Mourinho, his studio co-hosts Sven-Göran Eriksson, Wayne Rooney, and regular phone-in callers like Fabio Capello, Alex Ferguson, Arsène Wenger and some not-so-frequent callers like Rafa Benitez and Mick McCarthy, as well as the non-football-related puppets, Nelson Mandela^[4], and Willie Nelson.

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