Canada wry

Perhaps the most prestigious stand-up showcase in the world, the Montreal International Comedy Festival has in its time kick-started the careers of many of today’s most highly regarded performers. Jerry Seinfeld, Rowan Atkinson, Dylan Moran - the list reads like a who’s who of contemporary humour.

Operating under the name Just For Laughs, each year the festival selects comedians from numerous showcases across the globe, as well as videotaped submissions. The comics chosen are invited to perform at the main Just For Laughs Festival in the summer, which takes place from July 10-20 in Montreal.

One of the comedians who will be participating at this year’s Irish showcase is Dublin Comedy Improv member Brendan Dempsey. An esteemed performer on the domestic stand-up circuit, Brendan is also a regular on TV and radio both here and in Britain, with a burgeoning filmography to boot (more of which later). But first, let’s cut to the chase - is the Montreal showcase a make-or-break stage on the quest for world domination, or is it ultimately just another gig?

“It’s another gig, although I suppose you never know where things are gonna lead,” Brendan considers. “I think with certain performers who have benefited from Just For Laughs in the past, like Seinfeld or Dylan, their abilities are fairly obvious for all to see. And then for other people, it might actually be a hindrance.

“Because a lot of the time, comedians will get what they call a development contract out in Los Angeles, and for a year or two they’ll get well-paid and be sent to lots of auditions. But the thing is that these contracts are usually quite restrictive, and prohibit you from touring and playing festivals. So if things don’t work out, you’ve wasted a lot of energy developing some script which was probably never going to get the greenlight, when you could have otherwise spent that time honing your craft in the comedy clubs.”

Brendan himself has honed his craft in the company of some of the biggest names around. In addition to performing with stalwarts of the improv scene such as Whose Line Is It Anyway? star Colin Mochrie, Dempsey also shared the stage at the Kilkenny Cat Laughs Festival with Dan Castellaneta, better known as the voice of one Homer J. Simpson.

“Inevitably, he had a lot of people asking him to do Homer’s voice,” Brendan recalls. “One time he was doing a show, and the crowd called for him to do it. So he asked them to close their eyes, and he duly performed a few lines in the guise of Homer. Everyone was delighted and we could proceed with the gig. But I remember a Northern comic called Dave Johns approached him one night – completely pissed – and also asked him to do Homer. So Dan does the same routine, ‘Just close your eyes…’ Dave closes his eyes for a while, doesn’t hear anything. Eventually, he opens them again. Dan had fucked off and left him standing there!”

No slouch on the acting front either, Dempsey also found time over the past couple of years to play a cameo role in Martin Scorsese’s epic period piece, Gangs Of New York.
“It was a small thing, but I survived the edit!” he chuckles. “It was great fun. I suppose in your daydreams you imagine going out there, making some really interesting, pertinent suggestions to Scorsese about the shooting of the film, to which he would reply, ‘Quite. We’ve got to keep you for the rest of the shoot! Why don’t you stay on and maybe do some second-unit directing?’

“But you get there, have a talk about the scene, block it out - it’s quite workmanlike. I did hang around and watch him direct Daniel Day-Lewis and Brendan Gleeson in a scene they were doing. It was great to see that the really good directors are the guys who listen to everyone they’re working with, be it the actors, cameramen, whoever. Any suggestions they have to make are welcome, and if they fit in with his vision of the movie then they’re going to get used.”

Finally, to (mis)quote Olivia Newton John, let’s get analytical. When I asked Tommy Tiernan about his philosophy on his profession earlier in the year, he replied that it was “more or less exploring your imagination while you’re up on stage.” Does this ring true for Brendan?

“A lot of the time, I think it’s actually finding out what you yourself think about certain subjects,” he muses. “Frequently, things will only fall into place when you’re onstage in the middle of a rant, and I think overall that’s quite an important, individualistic way of presenting an opinion to a crowd. But, y’know, I always feel a bit odd talking about comedy. Ultimately, people either laugh or they don’t, and when I analyse the process, there’s always a voice in the back of my head saying, ‘Shut Up! You don’t know what you’re talking about!’ And I don’t!”