Mr Agreeable

Having recently returned from a 3-week stint on Manhattan’s comedy circuit, Tommy Tiernan is in a typically New York state of mind.

“It was a big thrill just being in the area of New York,” he enthuses. “Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, Woody Allen and Bob Dylan all started down there, so it was huge being there and being in the same field as them. Plus there was sport on 24 hours a day on one channel so I was in hog heaven!”
“The people that arrive to the New York shows are for the most part, 80% Irish, 20% Manhattan,” he explains. “It was like playing downstairs in the Titanic. I had to explain to the Manhattanites that the Irish people are aren’t welcome at home. Remember, these are the people that said ‘I’m thinking of going to America’, and the friends said ‘I think that’s a good idea’. Do you want a hand packing?”
Speaking of which, Tommy has no plans to quit Ireland just yet. In fact, he refuses to be drawn into saying anything untoward about Ireland at all.
“I don’t think there’s anything I don’t like about living here,” he insists. “There are some things you can get momentarily indignant about. Like when you’re in Spain and you get a five course meal for a fiver, and you say, ‘we’re being rode at home, we are. It’s a disgrace’.”
“There’s a line in the last show, we have to become careful we don’t become European business people, and the only way to do this is to start breeding with the tinkers,” he continues. “We need to start riding each other to loosen up the gene pool, so that the kids can be a bit buck wild, but have a dose of sense as well. There’s more to be got from them gippos than they’re letting on!”
Speaking about the common themes in the material for his forthcoming Loose show, he comments that he has recently become obsessed with “the search for wonder”.
“I saw this documentary about a quantum physician, and he said ‘I expect a miracle from the universe every day’,” he proclaims. “For me, I have to get focused and be committed. I want to be in a positive frame of mind. I’m interested in the idea of positively charging through your day and I’m interested in odd things, little miracles happening in your life.”
Hmmm…perhaps this misanthropic label that has been prescribed to so many comedians is ill-deserved in Tiernan’s case. In fact, the comedian is so full of positive energy, I’m half-expecting him to start doing some reiki right in the middle of this Westbury Hotel suite.
“Can you get the vibes, eh?” he says cheekily. “I’m also off the coffee, and now I drink pints of tea. Life is good, God is great and tay is hot!”
As the start date for the Loose tour draws closer, Tiernan admits that the pressure is on to get some material down on paper.
“At the moment, it’s like I’ve been let into Tesco on me own and I’ve to fill the trolly,” he explains, “And I’m legging it and getting loads of shit. And when I get out I have firelighters and nappies. I’m not walking around the shop slowly enough yet to see what I want. So yeah, I’m fuckin’ panicking a bit. I mean, it’ll never be fully written, even if show has been on for a year. It’ll change and it’ll grow. This is the worst part, trying to get it up and running.”
Aside from the search for wonder, Tiernan’s wayward philosophy on Catholicism is also sure to feature in the new material.
“I was doing a show last night in Ennis,” he explains. “There were kids in the front row, aged about 16 or 17, so I started saying, ‘when I was in secondary school, there was a guy who could sing like Sade, and we loved it. It really calmed us. I was thinking instead of statues of Virgin Mary in the school, there should have been posters of Sade and when the first years were going to bed at night, the priest could come in and go, ‘are yiz all quiet now’? Then he could turn the lights down on a dimmer, and sing (croons) ‘your love is king’, and the first years could fall asleep in the arms of a natural mother.’ Actually, I love to give people an unexpected night. I’d love to say ‘remember Sade?’ And then she’d walk on stage, sing and come off, and for people to go, ‘what the fuck is that?’”
Has Tommy ever come a cropper with some Billy Connolly style un-pc gags in his time?
“God, yeah!” he exclaims. “ I was in the States when that all happened. My dad said, ‘you know what? More people are upset about what Billy Connolly said than the fact that Ken Bigley died’. People are always looking for someone to blame. Last week it was Billy Connolly, this week it’s Colin Farrell with the heroin. It’s mainly newspaper editors who don’t mind out-shitting people. If I had my way, I’d gaffer tape them with a lawnmower, rape them with machetes and send them to Rwanda. But sure there’s bad bastards in plumbing too…”
Of course, one myth seems to prevail in the media – that comedians are in fact, rather unfunny in everyday life. Not that Tommy has little in the way to worry about on that score, but I put the theory to him anyway.
“That’s an interesting comment, but it’s a bit unfair of people to expect us to be funny all the time,” he muses. “I mean, we’re ordinary blokes. I was talking to Eddie Izzard about it, and he says, ‘First, you’re funny socially, then you become a professional comedian, and when you’re good at that, because you’re looking for funny stuff as work, you begin to think of it as work’. So then you meet people and you just don’t want to work, so you don’t want to say anything funny for the day.
“I guess you have to put some of the energy into your show into your day, sure I get that myself from people who know me. People say, ‘put as much effort into your fuckin’ day as you do your show. Why don’t you be nice to live with for a month?”
Surely these are not the words from his three children, aged 10, 4 and 2?
“I put the four-year-old to bed, and if I’m trying to be funny, if I don’t get the timing right, I’m flat on my arse,” he admits. “It’s like I’m working the crowd. Kids will only laugh if you’re genuinely funny.”
So does he see a future in comedy for any of his kids?
“They’re very funny,” he concedes. “They’re brilliant, genius children. They’re surrounded by someone who wants to make them laugh, so I wonder, does that rub off on them, does it make them funny people? I mean my dad never wanted to make me laugh…but then does that mean that I’ll have three accountants for kids? Not that accountants don’t have a sense of humour. I mean, Jaysus, have you seen my tax bill?”

Tommy Tiernan plays Vicar St from November 17-20 and again on the 24th and 26th. To win signed copies of his new Cracked DVD click here