DES BISHOPComedian and celebrity Gaeilgeoir
Stand-up comedy seems like a nice little earner. A hundred people, at a tenner a head. No bass player, no entourage, no royalties - that's a lot of money!
Oh, it's a great job. I won't go through the mathematics. But on the flipside, you know, for all the benefits of not having to share the wealth around, I also have to take a whole load on. I performed two nights in Skibbereen the other weekend. I drove there on my own. There's no bass player or entourage there for support.
Do you get recognised everywhere you go?Yeah. Pros and cons with that. If I'm on my own sometimes, it's actually not that bad. The con, though, is that I don't play a character on TV. People feel like they know me. So they tend to engage with me in a way that's quite familiar. It wouldn't be right then just to say, "Look, I'm busy now. I can't really talk".
Once a comedian has toured the same material around for 18 months, of course, he then brings out a DVD. Are there any extras on this one?For the stand-up DVD, Tongues, myself and my buddy Cathal were going to film two people rolling around on a beach, with a voice whispering "Recession . . ." like that Calvin Klein ad for Obsession. But I don't know if anyone remembers that ad now, so we didn't. There are lots on In The Name of the Fadathough.
Would it be fair to say that the magic formula for a lot of Irish comedians is 1980s kids' TV references, the travelling community and an expletive in the punch line?Try it out. Try it out yourself and see if it works. It's easy to pick out one or two of the easy laughs, particularly if you've got a critical mind. But most comedians are on stage for at least 20 minutes. So, once those couple of easy laughs are out of the way . . .
It's also a criticism of audiences as much as anything though. Sure. At the Electric Picnic, I saw one comic plough through some pretty thoughtful material to no response. Then he said "Aren't Travellers smelly?" and, honestly, it almost brought the house down. In fairness, a lot of festival audiences are drunk. It's also a bigger show than most comics will ever play. So the Picnic does tend to bring out rowdy material in comedians.
What's your favourite audience to play for?Honestly man, I still think the best comedy audiences are midweek. If you can get a good crowd on a Tuesday, they don't kick off straight away. You can kind of dictate the energy. Whereas on a Saturday, you might get some over-anticipation. People get drunk. The audience dictate the energy and that Electric Picnic phenomenon can kick in.
What's the nightmare scenario for a comedian onstage?Once I was doing a charity gig for a teenage cancer charity. I had testicular cancer myself once, so I was doing all my material about that. Anyway, about halfway through the show, somebody shouts, "Is there a doctor in the house? We need a doctor over here!" There's this big commotion. Turns out it's somebody's dad. It's nothing to do with cancer. A couple of minutes pass and everyone's worried. Then they tell me everything's okay now, I should carry on. And I'm like, "Carry on? Are you kidding me?"
What happened?Well, I finish the show. Afterwards, this poor guy is being carried out of the building on a stretcher by the paramedics. As he's passing me by, he takes off the oxygen mask to apologise for ruining my show. I mean, how effin' Irish is that? For Christ's sake dude, you're being taken to an ambulance. You don't have to worry about me!
• Interview: Eoin Butler