Stand up and coming

When I tell John Donnellan that this interview will be appearing in a special ‘Love & Sex’ themed issue of Hot Press to coincide with Valentine’s, a dark scowl immediately clouds the comedian’s previously beatific visage.

“I fucking hate Valentine’s Day!” he snarls. “It doesn’t even deserve capital letters!”
Why? Does it bring back unhappy memories?
“No, nothing like that,” he shrugs. “It’s not about romance, it’s about desperation. Florists desperate to make a buck, spotty teens desperate to make an impression, and office girls really desperate to get a bigger bunch of overpriced posies than their rival in the next cubicle. I fell for this entire caper, of course. I was that spotty teen, my girlfriend worked in a cubicle, and the florist made a fortune. But I’ve changed, man. Ha, ha!”
So you’re not a romantic, then?
“Nah, to my mind, it’s the least romantic day of the year. I like to think I’m a romantic every other day. Like, why try so hard for just one day? Try a little every day instead. It’s way easier, much cheaper and gets better results. That’s my advice, anyway.”
If you haven’t heard Donnellan’s name before, that’s because there’s no particular reason why you would have. Having worked as a scientist, nightclub promoter and security manager for most of his adult life, the 37-year-old Galwegian only got into stand-up as the result of a drunken bet six months ago.
Fortunately, that bet was with a comedy promoter, which meant getting his first gig wasn’t very difficult.
“I started doing stand-up last August as the result of a drunken bet with Kevin Healy,” he laughs. “I slurred something about being able to do better than whoever was on stage at the Laughter Lounge one night. He said, ‘Right then – you’re on in a month!’”
At a bit of a loose end, having only just recently returned from a year’s travelling in Asia, Donnellan (a former employee of Healy’s in the GPO nightclub) figured that he might as well give it a go. And the rest is history.
Well, recent history, anyway. He first stood on a stage just six months ago but, having notched up numerous gigs since, has already earned himself a reputation as a likely local successor to Tommy Tiernan.
“Actually, that first night, I went in early to check things out,” he recalls, “Kevin thought I was there to chicken out, but I actually asked him if I could have 20 minutes instead of 10.”
Taking his material from the stuff of his ordinary life, Donnellan’s routine about his days as a pubic-hair-shaver during a summer job in a small Galway hospital had that first night’s audience in stitches.
Instantly infected with the comedy bug, he’s done almost 20 gigs since, and still hasn’t died onstage. “Other stand-ups tell me that it happens to everyone eventually, but so far it’s been great,” he says. “I’ve done a couple of rowdy gigs in Limerick for John Caplis. We played Dolan’s Warehouse where the front two rows consisted of 25 apprentice electricians, all fairly hammered. That was one of the scariest, but it still went really well.”
Donnellan was born and raised in Eyrecourt, a small town about 50 miles east of Galway. “Eyrecourt is famous for very little,” he admits, “although we did have some high profile murders. Do you remember Imelda Riney and her son? That happened there. Our local curate, Father Joe Walsh was shot and killed in that incident.”
Despite that notorious tragedy, he had a typically quiet country upbringing. “I had a fairly bookish childhood, interspersed with some light vandalism and door bell ringing,” he laughs. “My parents ran a small pub/shop combination. It was one of those places where you had to walk through the shop to enter the pub. Consequently, we had an unusually high number of auld men shopping there. They could leave their shopping list out front and go in the back for a few pints and some leching at my sisters.
“I’ve got five sisters – none of them overly beautiful but they had to fight off plenty of advances. I remember one farmer telling my sister that she was a great catch, coming from a shop. He said, ‘A yard of counter is worth 20 acres.’
“Actually, the single most exciting event of my youth was when my sister who was nursing in Dublin brought home a black doctor. He managed to mount a neighbour’s donkey and rode it through the town. It was real second coming of Christ stuff!”
Having moved to Galway to do a Science degree in UCG, Donnellan got into running dance clubs, including the legendary Club Kaos. It took him six years to graduate.
“I set up Kaos in 1990 in the Castle with three friends,” he recalls. “It was a roaring success for a couple of years. It was Galway’s Summer of Love and I was right in the middle of it but, truthfully, hadn’t a clue about the drugs.
“Years later, friends of mine told me they had been mad out of it on acid all through this time. I thought we just created this amazing atmosphere through sound and lights! Ha, ha!”
When Kaos eventually imploded, he became head of security in the GPO. “It was the first club with credibility to open in the city centre. Initially we opened five days a week and partied for two.
“I’d love to say I have fond memories of this time but it’s mostly a blur. I do recall that if you heard two people in a toilet cubicle back then, they were far more likely to be having sex than doing coke. We usually let them finish before throwing them out.”
His country childhood, his college and nightclub years, and just ordinary Irish life in general make up the mainstay of Donnellan’s onstage routine.
“Ireland is a very parochial place,” he says. “Each little village near home called the next one a ‘bog’. It was as if our little patch was a world of sophistication. Nobody I know is sophisticated; we all take a dump once a day and I guess that’s what I’m trying to get across in my comedy.”
John Donnellan will be appearing at the Capital Comedy Club (Dublin) on February 21, the Laughter Lounge (Galway) on March 7, and the Laughter Lounge (Dublin) on March 8, 9 and 10.