The 'Arf Of The Matter

“‘Why don’t you suck Cameron’s rod you non-Irish cunt?’ That’s an actual tweet!” laughs Dara Ó Briain. The ex-pat comedian is sitting in The Shelbourne Hotel with Hot Press discussing such pressing issues as national identity, Ireland in the 21st century, the current state of comedy and rape by a giant rabbit. But more of that later…

The comedian is on a two-day trip which sees him host the Eircom Spider Awards, attend to several interviews and appear on The Late Late Show. Despite his packed schedule he is faultlessly polite and chatty with a remarkably quick mind and rapid-fire pace of speech.
Having moved to London ten years ago Ó Briain has become one of the most recognisable comedians on the UK circuit. He is the beloved host of Mock The Week, regularly appears on our screens on The Apprentice: Your’re Fired, Stargazing Live, Three Men In A Boat and sundry gigs as panellist on far too many quizzes to register them all. Then there’s his hectic tour schedule.
Although the UK has been his home since 1991, he has little doubt as to his nationality.
“Oh, I’m still very, very Irish,” he asserts. “I find it actually slightly irritating on Twitter when people go, ‘Sure you’re only a Brit now’, which I think is a bit weird. I am still very Irish, I still speak the language. I am not here day to day and I also don’t feel I should vote, because I think it would be inappropriate for ex-pats to vote, I am against that.”
Our interview coincides with Michael D.’s inauguration and Ó Briain expresses his delight with the result. He followed the race closely and admits he “did some urgent tweeting which I feel you must in these situations!”
As a London resident, he also watched the Queen’s visit with keen interest.
“We’ve never seen her smile in all the years I have been in England, and she was beaming from ear to ear here,” he grins. “The thing that was most striking was she was smiling, then a week later Obama was smiling during his visit and the day after that Obama met the Queen in London and neither of them were smiling. We just seem to have an anti-authority undercurrent to our form of pomp which comes across very, very well.”
His assimilation into British culture has been so successful that he has been dubbed ‘Terry Wogan’s heir apparent as Britain’s favourite Irishman’.
“That I think is a bit of guff. Graham Norton is Terry Wogan’s heir apparent,” he smiles. “I think it’s a bit of a misnomer, because Terry Wogan wasn’t a stand up. I’m going after Dave Allen’s legacy.”
When I protest that the comparison is meant to reflect the goodwill of the British towards him he is still sceptical.
“It’s a sweet thing for people to say but it does tend to overlook Norton who is the chat show king on BBC at the moment and does the Eurovision,” he
points out.
“I remember years ago standing at a bus stop when I had just gone over to London. I was waiting for my one-pound night bus to get me home to the box room in Ed Byrne’s house I was living in and I was feeling a bit mopey, the whole grind of being on the circuit and all that. I looked up from my bus-stop and there were two billboards with Graham Norton lying across them. So frankly I find it funny when people presume I am in any way at that level!”
he laughs.

One of the newer additions to Dara’s CV is his co-hosting slot on Stargazing Live with ex D:Ream keyboardist Professor Brian Cox. The programme allows Dara to put his Mathematical Physics degree from UCD to
some use.
“As part of that qualification I studied cosmology and relativity,” he explains. “I am doing more science broadcasting for the BBC over the next year or two and we’re doing a maths show for Dave next week. My nerdier side is given more reign now than it was: it’s nice to be able to flex those muscles again.
Was Dara a D:Ream fan?
“Yes, I think they’re on a compilation I have, in fact I think it was on my gym mix. But I have removed it now as it’s a bit weird!”
Perhaps Ó Briain’s best-known role is as host of Mock The Week, a perfect vehicle for his quick wit which sees him marshall two teams of comedians as they take an irreverant look at the events of the last seven days.
Former regular panellist Frankie Boyle was at the centre of several controversies due to statements on the show. Does Ó Briain feel as a jobbing comedian there are certain no-go areas?
“I don’t think there is any specific area which you shouldn’t do,” he contends. “But maybe I don’t see the humour in some of the things that Frankie does or in the way that some of your more shocking comedians do. I don’t think there’s an obligation on comedians to be shocking. I think that’s a myth put around by... I’d say tentatively music journalists because music journalists have a tendency to view comedy through the prism of Bill Hicks.”
Hmmmmm…
I’m put through my paces as Ó Briain tests my credentials by querying my comedy gig-going activities. Luckily I’m a fan of stand-up and can list a handful of shows recently attended so a potential cold war becomes an
entente cordial.
And so he resumes…
“I think our obligation is… there’s as much of an obligation to be a clown and to create hilarious situations,” he muses. “There is a tendency among people who aren’t huge comedy fans to think that the only form of comedy which is of any real interest is the awkwardness and the shock-and-gasp based material. I think that is ignoring great swathes of brilliant comedy.”
Ó Briain feels these misconceptions have pushed a new generation of comedians up a blind alley.
“Comedy doesn’t have an obligation to be dangerous,” he insists. “It’s great if it can be dangerous, that’s yet another colour in our palette, if it can say the unsayable. But there are a lot of young comics who think that is the only thing they have to do at the moment. And they’re doing really, really poor rape jokes and dead baby jokes and it’s just like, ‘Alright lads’. It looks undergraduate and childish and as if the gasp is somehow worth as much as the laugh. And
it’s not.
“I know that for Frankie, for example, the pleasure is in creating both of those effects to go (gasps) and then laughing despite yourself, that’s great. Frankie is at a higher level than most in terms of craftsmanship,” he says.
“A beautifully crafted pratfall or arrow through the head is worth as much – and is as difficult to write – as a shocking joke about rape. It should be noted through all this that in Frankie Boyle’s current book I get raped by a giant rabbit called Showbiz. I had an interesting conversation with Frankie about this (laughs)!
“I just think there is this weird tendency to think that all comedy needs to be angry that all comedy needs to be campaigning,” he states. “Great if you can do that and I like to make the odd point now and again. But it’s a lazy presumption that what someone who is as populist as Michael McIntyre does is any easier to write than what Stewart Lee does.”

As for his own material Ó Brian remains guarded when quizzed on the subject matter for his new show, which will wing its way to these shores in the new year.
“I have a disinclination to say what the show is about simply because comedy shows are more like albums than they are theatre shows,” he explains. “You wouldn’t ask a band what’s the album about, because they’d find it a bit weird… ‘So Beyoncé, what’s it about?’ ‘It’s about,’ says Beyoncé, ‘man’s inhumanity to man.’ An album is more like a collection of tracks.”
So what does 2012 hold for Dara?
“The tour will go on until November or December so everything is woven around the tour. I do another Apprentice, another Stargazing Live, another Mock The Week, another Three Men In A Boat and about 150 tour dates. The issue for me now is what am I doing in 2013 because that will be the first chance that I get a bit of a break.”
Flabbergasted Hot Press wonders how one lives such a life?
“You live that life because when you are actually doing it, it is a joy,” he states. “And once you have the show written, the hassle is getting there. Then you can bang out the jokes and enjoy yourself on stage.”
He pauses. “There was a criticism of [his book on English identity] Tickling The English on Amazon – because like a fool I will always read reviews – from someone saying, ‘How can he live like this?’ because Tickling The English is basically a tour diary. It said, ‘How can he live going to these greasy
venues?’ (Laughs)
“Man, he must have misread the book. I go from Classic Victorian theatre to Classic Victorian theatre where I tell jokes for two hours in front of enthusiastic and excited people. You get to the point where you are playing two hour shows in 1,000-seater venues and that gives you the most scope to express yourself and enjoy yourself. All the other stuff, the television and the interviews and all that, is just servicing getting to that point. And that point won’t stay there for too long – so while you are at that level you should enjoy being at that level and realise that this is where I have always wanted to get to and – this is it!”