Karl Makes A Mark

“I could have been a contender... I could have been a male Twink!” half-jokes Karl MacDermott, as he nostalgically reminisces about being labelled as the “next thing big Irish comedian” by sections of the UK press back in the 1990s.

But despite the enthused plaudits, MacDermott never hit those predicted dizzy heights. After 10 gruelling years on the circuit, MacDermott realised he wasn’t going to match the success of contemporaries, such as Ardal O’Hanlon, and retired seven years ago from stand-up. Since his decision to stop performing live, it might have appeared that MacDermott had vanished without a trace off the comedy radar. Not so. He has been busily working on scripts – some produced and some still languishing in ‘development hell’ – for the likes of the Abbey, RTÉ and BBC.
MacDermott has now used all his madcap experiences for a novel called The Creative Lower Being which – surprise, surprise – is about an ex-comedian trying to make it in the scriptwriting world. “It’s a comedy novel, with a sensitive slacker-lit and needy nerd-lit element – as opposed to lad-lit. I’d describe it as part Woody Allen, part Proust, part Macra na Feirme!” proffers MacDermott. “It tells the story of one Manus Mannion who has been a stage actor, comedian and part-time blues singer – with little success. At the start of the book, he is working as a film screenwriter and has a screenplay called The Shamrock Sumo Club languishing in ‘development hell’.”
The book encompasses the protagonist’s curmudgeonly comic diary-entries from his 39th to his 40th birthday. While ranting about his life in Dublin and his ongoing tribulations in the creative sphere, the book also examines Mannion’s domestic glitches with Kirsten, his long suffering girlfriend from Liechtenstein (MacDermott’s girlfriend is from Germany), and bittersweet yet sometimes bizarre memories of his childhood and adolescence in Galway (where MacDermott is originally from).
It all sounds very autobiographical.
“It is 62.8% autobiographical and 37.2% made up," Karl says. "Most writers use aspects of their lives for their writings. Memories, events, things they imagined happened, things they wish happened and they put it all in a big stewing pot on a low heat, throw in some gherkins and mix it all up,” explains MacDermott.
“As someone who has written comedy in various disciplines over the years – television, newspaper articles and radio – I always figured I could actually complete a comic novel. And once I stopped performing, I had a lot more time on my hands because when you work in comedy, you expend an awful lot of unnecessary time and energy – through worry, travelling to gigs and trying to get there on time, wondering what slot you’ll have in the running order of the show, and most importantly if the great unwashed and brainwashed will laugh at your jokes. And when you quit performing, that wasted time and energy can be channelled towards writing.”
The main character seems cynical and bitter – would MacDermott accept that? “No I wouldn’t. You haven’t done him justice. He’s also cantankerous, peevish, morose, paranoid, misanthropic, chronically unhappy and afraid of death. Like most of us. On a serious note, embittered cynical characters are funny. Think of a selection of all the great comic creations over the years: Alan Partridge, Ernie Bilko, Basil Fawlty, David Brent, George Costanza. Now I’m not putting Manus Mannion in that exalted league, but not one of those characters is a completely assimilated perfect member of society. They are all seriously flawed borderline sociopaths. Perfect human beings are boring. Flawed human beings are funny. I’m with Samuel Becket on this when he said ‘There is nothing funnier that unhappiness’.”
MacDermott says he still has fond memories of helping to start-up the Comedy Cellar club at the International Bar back in 1988. In fact, he performed at the club’s first ever gig. He recalls: “I played the very first gig with Mr. Trellis (Ardal O’Hanlon, Barry Murphy and Kevin Gildea), Dermot Carmody and a guy in a swim cap called Gerry. But in those early days, there was so few people involved you could try any sort of crazy stuff and fail and still get a gig the following week. But now the situation here is very like London. A thriving industry that is very crowded and very competitive. The downside of this is that there is no room for you to fail as a comedian as you try and find your comic voice and most acts end up taking very few risks and becoming homogenous polished robo-comics – utterly competent and utterly soulless.”
But despite those warm recollections, MacDermott says he has no plans to return to stand-up. “But you never say never,” he concludes. “Who knows, maybe I’ll wait 30 years, start smoking cigars, and in 2037 come out of the woodwork when I’m 74, and be Ireland’s answer to George Burns.