Des-tiny's Child

Des Bishop returns to Vicar St. shortly for the third and final time on his current tour, My Dad Was Nearly James Bond. Originally a show based around the life of Des’s father, Mike Bishop, who as the title indicates came close to landing the part of 007 (the role eventually went to George Lazenby), it also touched on the fact that Mike had been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. Sadly, Mike Bishop passed away in the past few months.

How has Des found the experience of performing the shows in the time since?
“It’s been fine, there’s no difference,” he replies. “The only difference is that this is the end of a long run. I was in Cork on Friday and I did a couple of dates in Vicar St. recently, and they’re all basically extra dates. I wasn’t even going to do Vicar St. on this tour. They’ve been going great, but at the same time, it’s the end of a long run, so I find myself messing around a little bit more than I would normally, just because you get bored of it.
“But in terms of the fact that my dad has died and the show is about him, it hasn’t affected the show at all. The other thing is that the documentary I made about my dad came out in the meantime, so people are really familiar with some of the material, but they have a lot more faith that it’s not as serious as they possibly thought. A lot of people are put off by the subject matter. Even amongst the people who come, I get a lot of reports afterwards along the lines of, ‘I was really apprehensive about coming because I lost my dad to this kind of thing’, but then they realise it’s okay.”
Interestingly, Des’ recent series of performances of the show in the UK resulted in him making an appearance on David Frost’s Al Jazeera programme.
“I think he’s got an Irish producer,” laughs Des. “I’d like to say it’s because David Frost is a huge fan of my work, but there’s an Irish girl who works there. I mean, I only know her from this one thing. But I think that show is like a mix of current affairs and arts from around the world, so I was doing a run in London a few weeks ago and they just contacted me out of the blue. I guess because it’s comedy about serious subject matter, father and son relationships, it’s a universal thing to talk about – you don’t have to be internationally famous.
“I did the interview in the London studio, which is right next to where I was born. David Frost himself is old! He’s lovely and it was a good interview, but he’s properly old. To the point where you’re kind of thinking, ‘How are you still doing this?’”
Do Des’ UK shows represent a conscious effort by the comic to make a name for himself over there?
“It’s new in that years ago I used to go over and do the comedy clubs there, before I got busy in Ireland,” he reflects. “Then I made a conscious decision not to bother, because there’s only so much you can do in a year. And then you get so out of the habit that you kind of fear getting back into it, but in 2008 I went to Australia, and I’d just got the buzz of gigging outside of Ireland. So I went to Edinburgh in ’08 and ’09 and then last year it was this show, and it really took off. Just on the strength of the reviews and everything, I said we’d do a UK tour. It was meant to be a bigger one, but the way it worked out time wise, my dad was heading towards the end, so I pulled back.
“I’m actually glad about that now, because it’s been great, but it’s a slog with some of the more regional arts centre. It works out, because there’s always a few Irish to bump up the numbers and you get enough people in the room that it’s not a bad atmosphere. I just think if I’d done the tour I was originally going to do, I would have been in some towns where it would have been pretty depressing (laughs). The show is completely universal, so it just seemed like the right time to give it a proper shot, rather than popping over the odd time. When I say give it a proper shot, I have no intentions of moving over there, but at the same time it’s just saying, ‘Why not?’”
Des is currently working on a book based on the show, which is due to be published before next Christmas. However, those expecting a typical ‘comedian-does-stocking-filler’ affair, be warned – parts of it will be pretty hard-hitting.
“It’s heavy, man,” acknowledges Des. “It’s not that funny, actually, and I don’t care! I’m not trying to make it funny. Penguin, who are publishing it, want it to come out for Christmas, but it’s not a Christmas book, and I’m comfortable with that. I would prefer people to say it was seriously emotional, because that’s the kind of book I’m writing. There’s funny parts in it, but then again my stand-up show at the moment is really emotional too, although obviously I have an obligation to be funnier throughout.
“My dad had a pretty horrible childhood, and that was always going to be part of the original My Dad Was Almost James Bond, which I thought was going to be more of a one-man theatrical show, as opposed to stand-up. It sounds strange, but actually because he got ill, it was able to be more of a stand-up show. It was serious in a different way, whereas there’s nothing funny about my dad’s childhood.
“The original story was not going to be told in stand-up; there was going to be this silly kind of nostalgia about my dad’s original career, the humour of our life growing up together and him as just a normal dad. And then the realisation that he was not a normal dad, because many dads who experience what he experienced end up repeating abuse and all these things.”
From the way Des talks about both the stage show and documentary, it seems like he was at a point in his career where he wanted to tackle more substantial subject matter.
“The majority of projects I’ve done have not been general observational comedy,” he points out. “Minimum wage, which I looked at in the Work Experience TV show, would not be your run-of-the-mill comedy fare, and neither would social marginalisation and disadvantage, which I examined in the next TV series I did. And I also did In The Name Of The Fada, which was about the Irish language. So, I’ve always leaned towards theme-based comedy.”

Des Bishop performs My Father Was Almost James Bond at Vicar St., Dublin on June 11.