Entertainment

Dara Ó Briain on bringing his emotionally resonant new stand-up show to Derry

David Roy chats to comedian Dara Ó Briain about bringing his new stand-up tour So... Where Were We? to Derry this week, why he loves performing in the city and why this latest show is a more personal affair than usual...

Dara Ó Briain returns to Derry this week
Dara Ó Briain returns to Derry this week Dara Ó Briain returns to Derry this week

"JUST because Derry Girls was a really good show doesn't mean that the rest of them should now be pitching in with their comedy ideas," jokes Dara Ó Briain of the famous Derry sense of humour and how audience participation is likely to play a part in his imminent three-night run of shows at The Millennium Forum.

The Co Wicklow-born stand-up and soon to be ex-host of the recently cancelled topical BBC panel show Mock The Week is back on the road with his latest comedy tour So... Where Where We?, a brand new set featuring some of his most personal material to date – more about which in a moment.

But first, back to that Derry crowd.

"There are a few places that have that 'we are uniquely funny' thing – Liverpool's the same," continues London-based Ó Briain (50), "but I have honestly found Derry to be great fun.

"I remember at one recent show there, a guy in the front row was hammered. He was sat in the middle, on his own, and he was being quite 'interactive' during the first half. I was thinking 'OK grand – but hopefully this won't carry on for too long'. Then he actually fell asleep during the second half.

"Normally, for the finale, I do a big build-up where I go around everyone we've spoken to and it gets bigger and bigger and bigger and then 'wa-haay', we end with a big cheer. But at the end of this one, I said to the audience, 'OK – tonight, and for tonight only, I'm going to do a really quiet ending and then we're all going to quietly tip-toe out: if all goes well, this guy will wake up in a completely empty theatre.

"Of course, he woke up just as we were finishing."

As one of Ireland's most universally loved comedy exports, Ó Briain is well used to receiving a warm welcome in most of the towns and cities he visits while on tour. However, it seems the people of Derry were particularly pleased to receive him the last time he was there.

"My London agents had to arrange some interviews for me and I said, 'Sure we'll just do it at the local BBC station in Derry'," he recalls.

"They came back to me and said, 'Ah, we've looked into this and, the thing is, there is no 'BBC Derry'.' So, then I had to go, 'Oh yeah, of course – sorry'. Eventually we worked out it was BBC Foyle.

"Their studio is up at the top of the hill, so afterwards I'd to walk back down the hill into the town and the traffic coming past me – and it was like I was the priest and they were all leaving Mass. Everybody was beeping the horn and I'd to wave to literally every car as I went along.

"So, I have a long relationship with Derry and it's lovely to be back. It's always very good, it's always eventful and always, just really fun. Just a really silly weekend. To the extent that I have an agent who used to be my tour manager for years: he's now moved up within the agency and doesn't come out the road very often – but for some reason, this weekend, he's like, 'I really must go and check out how the tour's going'."

He adds: "I also still have my local there, Sandinos. I've noticed that a lot of places have disappeared [due to the pandemic] – sometimes it's like a Debenhams or something, but then occasionally it's a really cool little bar that you remember going to.

"That's happened a fair bit, but god, I'm delighted that Sandinos has survived. If that was gone it would break my heart."

Another memorable visit to the walled city coincided with the annual City of Jazz Festival, which brings live music to venues across Derry for an entire weekend: great, if you know it's happening before you arrive in town with the intention of doing some live, jazz-free stand-up comedy.

"It's essentially just a big wedding across the entire city," says Ó Briain, who also features on the current series of challenge-based TV show Taskmaster.

"Wherever you go, there's a band on. I was staying at the City Hotel and the lobby area was basically just another venue: I was trying to go up to my room and I'd to skiddly-dee-dat my way past a jazz trio playing in the corner of reception.

"My show was in a venue that clearly would otherwise have been used for more jazz. I said to the crowd, 'I'm not normally booked for jazz, but what the hell – I'll give it a try,' and I gave them about a 15-second version of Mack The Knife, until the joke wore thin and I was like, 'OK, fine – I'll stop now."

As mentioned, So... Where Were We? features some of the most personal material Ó Briain has ever performed, with the second part of the show centred on the adopted funnyman's recent search for his birth parents and his frustrating experience with the multitude of bureaucratic and privacy law related roadblocks thrown at him by the Irish State.

However, Ó Briain is keen to stress that there are plenty of laughs in store before and indeed during this emotionally resonant section of his latest set, which has proved a hit with crowds on the tour thus far.

"It's gone well, but it did feel like a gamble," he tells me of taking So... Where Were We? out on the road.

"There's an element to [this tour] where I worry more when I get off the island of Ireland, because I think it's very easy for people here to get the resonance of what I'm talking about. In the Republic, it's on Prime Time every week, there's stuff about the Magdalene Laundries and it's a big story. So the emotional context is grand – it's when you go to somewhere like Woking, you kind of go, 'Right, you're gonna have to come with me a bit on this and just trust me: I may be trying to cash a cheque here in terms of your interest in me beyond make me go ha-ha-ha'.

"But it's been okay. And the European gigs, which I thought were the ultimate test of this, they went very well. Like Stockholm and places like that, they really got into the story in a huge way."

The comic admits that part of the reason he's doing the adoption-related material in the new show is because nothing much else of note has happened to him over the past couple of pandemic-informed years – and it also offered the ideal chance to try something different with his audiences.

"Occasionally, you just get given a story in your life, and you go, 'Yeah, okay: let's try this'," he explains.

"You know the last show was just 'boom-boom-boom' [with laughs]. And the next one will also probably be 'boom-boom-boom'. So, with this one, it's like, 'Let's just see if I can paint with a slightly different palette, just for a while' – but then you've also got 90 minutes of 'boom-boom-boom' until you get to that bit as well.

"So I want people to know about that part of the show. But at the same time, I don't want it to discourage anyone from coming. Really, I just want to get everyone in the room with me and trust that I can make it entertaining for them."

Over to you, Derry.

:: Dara Ó Briain, September 29 to October 1, Millennium Forum, Derry. Tickets and full information via millenniumforum.co.uk