Soupy Norman - Plot

Plot

The main story of the show concerns Esther, a young girl from Buttevant, County Cork, who travels up to Dublin to study in college. There she encounters strong discrimination, for being a "culchie". She lives with Susan Costigan, "a woman with red hair", her daughter Kylie, her son Nathan (who becomes possessed by voices in the episode "Omen"), and her husband. Kylie becomes Esther's friend, and they are seen stealing items (such as a dog) in the episode "Margarita".

The series' other main characters are Esther's father, named Jack, and her grandfather, known as Daddy, who live in Buttevant. The grandfather is an extreme authority figure, as seen in the first episode "Buttevant", and constantly berates Jack, calling him a "great big disappointment". The two of them are mostly seen drinking vinegar (Jack thinking it was whisky), and being visited by Soupy Norman, the title character. Soupy is always inebriated, and only ever delivers rambling, nonsensical rantings to the two men. In one episode, he asks to marry Esther's sister. He refers to Esther as "that culchie bitch". The Soupy Norman sequences are always taken from the same scene from First Love, and are repeated every episode.

The series has a subplot of Sean, a Dublin youth, trying to make a living in the city. He does this by applying for increasingly strange jobs, such as a builder, walking a dog with "canine leg disorder", running the "Red Car Bar" nightclub, and helping Satanic spirits.

In the final episode, "Straz", a character called Soupy Dave is contracted to kill Jack by his wife, using a number of surreal techniques.