Look, Hughes talking

Sean Hughes makes a welcome return to Dublin later this month for a date at Vicar Street. Interestingly, the comic says that he intends only to do an hour-long slot, as he intends to have a support act, and also because he feels his material has been unfairly singled out by the Irish media as being particularly offensive.

“The Irish media are worse with me than with Tommy Tiernan,” says Hughes, en route to a performance in Ludlow (“wherever the fuck that is”). “They always look at every line I do to see if they can annihilate me. People have phoned in Joe Duffy to say I should never work again. There was this one joke I did that people were particularly upset about. It was the day Madeleine McCann’s parents were going to visit the Pope, and I just said, ‘I know he’s a Nazi, but I can’t see how he’s involved.’ Also, I got some shit about some stuff I did - which was actually a true story - about working with Down’s Syndrome kids.
“It was weird, I was in Dublin this week and I saw the Hot Press comedy special. Ireland is very backward with a lot of that stuff. There’s a lot of brilliantly progressive people, but there are really some people who just don’t know shit. Quite frightening.”
Unsurprisingly, Hughes doesn’t pull any punches in his new show. Refreshingly, he has a dig at sacred cow Stephen Fry (“he knows the meaning of every word - except dignity and integrity”), and there is the usual sprinkling of completely tasteless - and very funny - gags (when he sees a famine victim on TV pleading for help, “otherwise my wife and children will die”, his reaction is, “how come he’s got a wife and children? He’s not much of a catch.”)
Is he attracted to exploring taboo subjects in his comedy?
“I don’t, but there’s two things there,” replies Hughes. “One is, like any other comic, if I think something is funny, it’s funny. So I don’t wake up in the morning and go, ‘What can I write about a car crash today?’ It’s not like that. But what I find unnerving in today’s society is that when you mention a subject, some people don’t really want to listen to the content, they just go, ‘Oh my God.’ I did a joke on the last tour as well, that would get a little ‘Ooh’ until people realised what it was. I don’t have a go at anyone, but I said, ‘Never take a little kid to people who do drugs. Never take an ecstasy tablet before you go to a Holocaust museum.’
“Again, I can stand by any of my jokes. Someone told me that Ed Byrne got into trouble about a joke recently as well. It’s all getting totally out of hand now. On the last tour as well, I was doing Ipswich. There were a couple of late comers, and I said - and it’s not my finest moment - ‘Why are you late? Were you out killing prostitutes?’ And the next day I was on the front of the Ipswich whatever, and they were demanding an apology. I just went, ‘Fuck off’. If we don’t make a stand now, we’ll all start censoring ourselves, and then we’re back to a very weird society.”
With regard to Stephen Fry, is there an aspect of his persona you find especially irritating?
“It’s not the case that I’m going, ‘I can’t wait to do this joke because I’ll get a round of applause’,” responds Hughes. “A lot of the time people are going, ‘How dare you slag off our national treasure.’ It’s a weird thing. Reading a lot of that Hot Press issue, I just realised how boring comics are to talk to. They might be brilliant onstage, but it just looks rubbish on paper. I take it really way too seriously. For me, comedy is totally about the truth - I’m old school. That’s why, I practically never say a word, because it is the truth I will say.
“With the Stephen Fry thing, it’s kind of, ‘Yeah, this has to be said.’ It’s not an hilariously funny line, but I’m not frightened of saying shit. Like, I was in Belfast last week and I was doing stuff about Stephen Gately. Again, it’s not about him - I don’t like to see anyone dead, let’s get that straight - but it’s the media saying, ‘The brave Stephen Gately.’ I’m just saying, what was brave about coming out when he was forced out by the press? As a matter of fact, he’d been living a lie for such a long time. That’s not his fault, but you should never be frightened of who you are.
“Being forced out as gay by the press is not brave as far as I’m concerned. If he’s brave, he should have joined to army, went to Afghanistan, and when the Taliban were just about to start shooting, he should have went, ‘I’m gay by the way.’” With Stephen Fry, I don’t mind the guy, and I haven’t had a run in with him, but it’s the antithesis of what Irish people find funny. England still finds word play hilarious, and I don’t, I find it kind of tedious. And he’s a champion of all that. Also, it’s that thing of trying to be a national treasure and being a prostitute at the same time. I don’t think you can have it both ways, unless you’re a really good prostitute.”
In general, Hughes has little time for artists of any kind who do advertising.
“It’s kind of what the new show is about as well,” he explains. “What age do you get to where you give up on your soul and just do things for the money. That’s why the Stephen Fry things stays in, because it’s important to talk about stuff like that. Also, Iggy Pop and Johnny Lydon are up there now as well. I despise those cunts now. I’ve done two novels, but I would never write an autobiography. I just don’t understand people who do that. There’s a slew of them out at the moment. I don’t really like people - I don’t like what they stand for. Last night I was in Coventry, and it was a brilliant show. It’s just a bunch of misfits who come and see me, and I adore them. I feel like I’m head of some kind of cult church!”