John Colleary: "I think of Cavan as Ireland's Africa"

“Everything is ticking along at the moment,” says a “reasonably motivated” John Colleary over the phone. “Not bad and not brilliant, as good as 50-whatever-age-I-am, can be.”

The Sligo funnyman is downplaying his situation. An award-winning veteran of stage, TV and radio, he followed up a support slot for Tommy Tiernan (who labelled Colleary as "his favourite comic") in 2022 with an incredibly well-received string of his own ‘Loud and Colleary’ shows the following year.

He’s gearing up to embark on another major tour across the country this September, opting for the metric title of ‘Head In a Shed’ this time around.

“It's something that came to my mind as a rhyme, and then I thought, ‘Actually, that makes sense’,” Colleary explains. “My head’s like a shed because it's too big for what's in it, everything that's in it is scattered around the place, and most of it doesn't belong to me.”

Well-versed in bringing his trademark satirical depictions of Irish society across all four corners of the island, does Colleary ever find himself changing his set up depending on the environment?

“In Ireland you can sort of keep it the same, because what I do is Irish-centric, it always has been,” he says.

“It's interesting to watch different reactions in different counties, how people are and what the sensibilities are like. There's local things you can throw in. I find Sligo, Leitrim, Monaghan, Donegal, Meath to be interesting audience-wise because they're a bit more into the absurd.”

The second night of the tour is primed to be his biggest ever headline gig. The setting is Dublin’s 3Olympia, a special venue to the comedian for a number of reasons.

“The Olympia is a major point for me because I'm a big music fan, we’re talking The Cult, Echo and The Bunnymen and The Stranglers” he says. "I've been to so many tip-top shows there that I couldn't even count them. I bought Hot Press and all the music press regularly. I poured over it and analysed the shit out of music.

“I also had a job as a stagehand. I loved it, the crew we worked with are great heads. To get up on that stage on September 15, coming not only the love of music but the fact I’ve pushed boxes up and down a ramp into the back of that building. I'm really proud.”

Before headlining the Olympia or supporting big names were realistic possibilities, Colleary has had to endure many a self-admitted stinker.

“I can remember numerous shows that were horrific,” he reveals. “They were mostly outside of the normal club scene, like corporate things or weddings. I remember doing a wedding with kids and one came up to me, he was really small, about four. He had a little suit on him and said to me: ‘Are you nearly finished?’

“It's like they’ve asked Santa to come and then he doesn't give out presents and gets drunk and knocks down the Christmas tree. I used to get very upset about it, but nowadays I just go ‘Okay that just went wrong I'm just going to forget about that’.”

Another obstacle was his shyness as a natural introvert, describing his on-stage persona in the early days an “alter-ego”.

“It’s a platform to be an extrovert for that period of time,” he explains. “It wasn't easy because I didn't get into this thing until I was over 30. When I did finally get into doing stand-up, I was absolutely petrified. I was living off adrenaline and fear for about five years. Every show was like, ‘Oh my God, what am I doing?’”

Luckily for him, the comic’s union provide a very capable support network.

“In the old days, I'd be driving home and I'd stop the car. I'd nearly be crying at the side of the road,” Colleary reveals. “The therapy for comedians is ringing another comedian to tell them how bad it was. They’d laugh their head off at it because there's nothing a comedian likes more than another one suffering.

“You'd have to ring Dave McSavage then. Dave was a great guy to ring if you did really badly.”

The pair have a longstanding history of comedic collaboration, notably joining forces on cult classic RTÉ show The Savage Eye. It rarely pulled any punches, especially when it came to their Cavan man jokes.

“I think of Cavan, and I mean this with the greatest respect, and it is a respectful thing to say, to be Ireland's Africa," Colleary says. "Everything is related back to it. Everyone I know is by a couple of degrees related back to Cavan. Dave's mum is from Cavan, My mum is from Cavan, everyone on the set seemed to have a connection to it.

To this day one of the funniest programmes ever beamed onto our screens, Colleary shares some more thoughts on what made the show click.

“TV was a more central medium, people actually sat down and watched the thing back then,” he observes. “We were having a go at the church as well. A window appeared due to the fact that the church, not to use too much of a pun, were on their knees at the time due to all the investigations like the Ryan and Murphy reports. Their stock was low and I think because of the climate with that, that show got the green light."

“There’s also the fact that the country was in that recession,” he continues. “They were a little bit less conservative about where the laughs came from because they were necessary.

“Comedy really took off between about 2003-2008. It got bigger but out of hand as well. It was about big nights out, people were locked and a bit silly during shows.

“After the crash, it came back to itself. We were doing gigs for people who really needed a laugh. They were dealing with things that were a bit more serious, so they’d come into the room and they just want to forget about stuff.”

There’s obviously been a drastic change in how we consume media since The Savage Eye’s heyday. Many standup routines are often condensed into 15-second best bits, posted into the void with the fanciful aspiration of viral success.

“There's so many clips online, so many bits, so much streaming. It’s a big old mess as far as I'm concerned and everyone's head is fried,” Colleary notes.

“The whole bleeding world has been mediatised and everyone is publishing content and then everybody else is entitled to ‘comment’ and say if it's right. So many people are invested in content and in the commentary on content and then the commentary upon that commentary."

In a broader context, Colleary feels newsfeeds have also blurred the lines between what should be taken seriously and what should be discarded as dull-wittedness .

“Social media has removed a section of society that we used to have called ‘fucking eejits’,” he adds. “If someone, say, rang Gay Byrne on the Late Late Show in 1990 and said ‘Gay, all of them foreigners they're all bad right’, people would say ‘he's a fucking eejit’ and they'd let it go.

“But now everyone's published and once it’s written down, it looks more serious. If you were to put them on the street and let them say all the things they've written down, it'd be very different. They'd end up just going ‘How's your mam?’ because that’s what real people are like at the end of the day.”

• John Colleary plays the Olympia on September 15. For more information, including tickets, click here.