In a new series starting today, Irish Times writers consider the lives they might have led – had they not become journalists instead. In part one, Shane Hegarty re-visits his short-lived career as a comedian – with an open-mic spot at a Dublin comedy club
THIRTEEN YEARS AGO
IN THE history of Irish comedy, I am a footnote in an appendix of a punchline to a joke nobody would tell. For a few months in 1997, I did some stand-up around Dublin. The core of my set was a riff on rave dances. I wasn’t exactly Bill Hicks.
But that year, I qualified for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe’s newcomer competition. It turned into one of the most enjoyable weeks of my life. And after it, I gave up comedy.
There were two reasons.
Firstly, there was my experience at the competition, “So You Think You’re Funny”. I did and I wasn’t. Not by an Edinburgh audience’s standards anyway. My confidence hadn’t been helped by how, half an hour before the show, I discovered that the MC – Irish comedian Michael Smiley – didn’t just perform a similar routine to mine, he owned it.
Smiley was responsible for a “big fish, little fish, cardboard box” line that even now is comedy shorthand for rave dancing. So I bounded into the spotlight with shopworn material and greeted a crowd that seemed only angered by having been lured in to the venue for a two-for-one deal.
My set was eight minutes long, but I immediately realised that this was not going to be a night of glory and accepted the fact with stoicism as deep as the silence that greeted every punchline.
When it was over, I dragged myself out of there, leaving behind only the chalk outline of my comedy career.
Peter Kay won the competition that year, allowing me some comfort in later years, but it was another future comedy star who provided my second motivation for getting out of clown town.
The very first act I went to see in Edinburgh that week was Johnny Vegas, at a time when his cocktail of heartache and lager was fresh, and when it featured the rather ingenious addition of a potter’s wheel. He was a hit of that year’s Fringe and, for me, a revelation. I’d never seen live comedy of that standard; and knew I could never hope to be that good. By the end of Vegas’s show I had decided comedy would do just fine without me.
I didn’t want to spend my life gurning for undignified publicity shots and writing weak jokes about my personal failures for the amusement of dwindling crowds.
So, I took up journalism instead. Clearly, no parallels can be drawn.
TWO WEEKS AGO
IN THE intervening years, I have made the mistake of occasionally mentioning that I did comedy way back when. When I say I “mentioned”, I mean “went on about it a bit”.
An eight-minute set in Edinburgh, played out to the damp mix of bored Scots and my cold sweat has since grown to be closer to a month-long sell-out run. I may also have inadvertently given the impression that my absence from comedy constitutes one of the great losses to modern popular culture, that I am the Harper Lee of Irish comedy, a story that grizzled, veteran comedians growl to newcomers. “You think Tiernan is good? You should have seen Hegarty. They say that, after one gig, his rave dance riff put 43 members of the audience in hospital with respiratory problems. . . ”
Today, I will be called out on it. The Features Editor decides that because I did some stand-up in the months before I landed in journalism, that this was the path through life I could have taken, the fork in my personal road.
That it would be hilarious to get me back on a stage once more.
“You could have been a comedian,” he grins. The subtext is clearly “instead of becoming the office joke”.
Through Twitter, I am offered a slot by Des Bishop. He and his brother Aidan run the International Comedy Club four nights a week. It is the centre of the Irish comedy universe, with a regular open mic spot (although there is no actual microphone) for anyone willing to step into it: seven minutes, sandwiched between the “real” comedians. It’s a great venue with a good crowd.
It’s the only place to do it. I couldn’t be more nervous if someone ordered me to do an hour of interpretive mime to the inmates at Mountjoy Prison.
After that, when people hear about my impending slot at the International, they respond in one of two ways: either recalling friends who tried stand-up and died so horribly that they’re still disinfecting the venue; or colleagues who tell me, in softened voices, that I am “so brave”, as if I was donating a kidney rather than my dignity.
Meanwhile, I work on my material.
My first mistake is to watch a few comedians on YouTube, mostly Stewart Lee, an English comedian who sets high standards not just for himself but for other comics too. He has a particular routine about the laziness of observational comedy (“what’s the deal with women taking so long to get ready? What’s that all about, eh?” etc).
It is powerful and wicked, and I decide that he is right. I must push myself to write material that is strong, challenging, intelligent. But I can’t think of anything. So I withdraw that challenge and come up instead with a short sketch about a sore eye and a few jokes about the weather . . . what’s all that about, eh? Eh?
LAST THURSDAY
ON THE day of the gig, the Bishop brothers are in New York. I call them for advice. It turns out that Des and I were in the same heat of So You Think You’re Funny in 1997. It jogs a memory of how good he was that night but somehow didn’t get through to Edinburgh. He seems to have got over it and he has some very useful advice, most notably this: “Half an hour before the show, you’ll have an idea that you think is hilarious. Do. Not. Do. That. Joke.”
“Don’t try and talk to the audience,” advises Aidan, “because you won’t have the experience to deal with it. If you have something strong, use it at the start so that you establish yourself with the crowd. Confidence has a lot to do with it; it’ll give you the upper hand, so try and have fun and don’t think about it. And don’t go over seven minutes. Seriously.”
I arrive at the International to find a cloud of friends hovering at the door. I immediately regret telling anybody – anybody being everybody – that I was doing this. I regret reminding them repeatedly. And I deeply regret giving the impression that a seven-minute open-mic slot during a two-hour comedy show in a small room was as seismic as a Saturday night at the Apollo.
Tommy Nicholson is also on the bill. We both did So You Think You’re Funny in Edinburgh in 1997, and I’ve seen him perform several times since – supporting Des Bishop in Vicar Street, entertaining a festival crowd at the Electric Picnic – he’s an Irish comedy stalwart.
He performs before me; his act honed so that the character is fully formed and his comedy memory rich enough that he can run with whatever the audience throws at him. There are three other acts – Damian Clark, Rory O’Hanlon and excellent musical pairing Totally Wired. Added to that is compere Colum McDonnell, who clobbers the audience with routines about buses and self-service supermarket check-outs.
The other acts wait their turn on the stairs outside the door. I stay and watch the show. Rookie error. I realise that each of them has a joke every four seconds; knows where to start, how to sustain the laughs and how to end it on a big cheer. I have material about the weather and a sore eye.
As my slot draws closer, the jokes are shuffling into line in my mind, ready to plummet to their deaths from my dry mouth. McDonnell announces me.
I do my routine and learn the following:
1) Screaming too loudly, too early, does not put an audience at ease
2) Jokes about my gimpy eye are not as funny as you might imagine
3) There is a spot on the International’s stage where the light shines so sharply in your eyes that you can’t see the audience. It’s a good place to stand
4) I forgot one of my jokes! Can I go back and pick it up? Too late!
5) I really shouldn’t have screamed
6) Wrapping up a set with a meek “thanks for that”, as if someone has just handed you a monthly pensions report, is anti-climactic for everyone concerned
7) Remember Johnny Vegas
Afterwards, my friends are supportive, the other comedians are unwaveringly kind. I guess it wasn’t a complete humiliation – I hope it wasn’t – but I feel somewhat chastened all the same. “It must have been a great buzz,” a few people say. It wasn’t. It was weather-themed social torture.
LAST FRIDAY
I REPORT back to the office. The resignation note remains in my desk drawer.
But I have worked out a plan for the future. Should a similar situation ever arise again, I will tell the Features Editor that I could have become a photographer for a bikini magazine.
You’ve been a fantastic crowd. Good night!
