The Sweet Hereafter

Last year saw Karl Spain perform an Edinburgh Fringe show, Life Is Sweet, about his experience of being diagnosed as a diabetic (the Limerick comic had actually suffered the symptoms of the illness during his Edinburgh run in 2006). Given that he was restored to full health, how did the gigs go for him?

“They went well,” reflects Karl. “I enjoyed Edinburgh a lot last year, probably because I wasn’t suffering from diabetes after being treated (laughs). I didn’t realise I had it for a couple of years, so I was thinking, ‘Oh, I’m just tired.’ And I suppose I had a tendency to keep my energy just for the gigs, but in Edinburgh, you can have really long days. You can be doing your first gig at lunch time, which for a comedian is breakfast time, and then finishing at maybe two or three in the morning. You’re doing three or four different shows around the city, and you’re constantly running around here, there and everywhere.
“Two years before when I was in Edinburgh, I was just exhausted, and it did affect the shows some nights. There were nights I’d arrive at my own show, knowing I was going to be onstage for an hour, and I probably became a bit mechanical in doing it. So, this time I really enjoyed it. I suppose I just had a better lifestyle while I was there. I was enjoying myself a bit more; getting out and about and seeing things, rather than just sitting at home conserving energy.”
Now that Karl is back firing on all cylinders, what projects are currently occupying his attention?
“At the moment, I’ve probably too much on the go,” he replies. “I’ve got different irons in the fire and I’m writing different things. I’m involved with Eircom, doing these pieces where I go around with the Irish football team. Football is my real passion, and I’ve interviewed Trappatoni now probably a dozen times for the Eircom website; all the different clips are up already. I’ve also interviewed some of the players. I can do it in kind of a lighter style, and have a bit of craic with it. That’s the dream job – it’s a pity it’s not 52 weeks of the year, because it’s an absolute pleasure.
“It’s more fun and better than I even thought it was going to be, and I was absolutely thrilled and excited about getting it. I’ll be going to the Georgia match, and then the Bulgaria and Italy games. There’s something most months. I travel with the team, because the journalists actually travel at the back of the plane. So if the plane ever crashed, it would be a huge loss of talent (laughs). Just to keep both camps happy! It’s a thrill for me, because when I went back to college as a mature student, I did television production, and I wanted to be a sports journalist.
“My initial dream as a child would have been to be a footballer, and that would have had me on the plane at some stage. And then when I realised I wasn’t good enough, the ambition would have been to be a journalist, and that would also have had me on the plane. So to find myself on the plane, for any reason, it makes me a little giddy at times. Like any group, some of the journalists don’t get on, but they’re all so into football that I can relate to every one of them. And obviously I would know who they are from reading a host of papers anyway.”
A few years back, Karl fronted his own television series, Karl Spain Wants A Woman, which saw him venture into the world of dating agencies.
Karl actually ended the series in a relationship, which is still going strong. At what point in the show did he meet his partner?
“We went to wine tasting on the date, which wasn’t my idea,” explains Karl. “I’m not really a drinker. It was funny, Una, one of the girls who worked on the show, would kind of be steering me away from some girls. She had that woman’s intuition, like, ‘This is one who’s just on the make’. And because of my tiredness from working on the show or whatever, maybe my radar wasn’t working as well as it should have been. But I do remember one particular moment, and Rachel – my girlfriend – doesn’t believe this.
“The women who appeared on the programme had to fill out a form, with details and a photo, just so we knew they were genuine, and not one of my mates taking the piss. But I remember Una handing me Rachel’s form, and saying, ‘Now, this is the kind of girl we’re looking for. More of these please.’ So it was kind of funny that we did end up together. Actually, I genuinely forget about the TV show. It’s in the past now, we could just as easily have met in a nightclub or whatever. It’s not relevant to the relationship.
“It’s like, Valentine’s Day is coming up, and every year newspapers ask, ‘Oh, are you still together?’ and ‘Can we do a feature?’ I’ll probably be disappointed if they don’t call up (laughs). Rachel certainly has no interest in it, and I don’t particularly either.”
Aside from Karl’s own relationship, the show also yielded other – perhaps more unexpected – results.
“Every so often, someone will come up to me and say, ‘The reason I’m with my partner is because of your show’,” says Karl. “They’ll say, ‘It kind of inspired me to go out and try this and that.’ And there was actually the first baby of the show! Someone said to me that they met their girlfriend because of the show, and they’ve had a child. I don’t know if that’s ever going to be mentioned in the population statistics when they look back at history. Maybe they’ll talk about the ‘Karl Spain Wants A Woman Factor’ late in the first decade of the 21st century!”