Tommy dearest

I’ve decided not to bring any notes to my interview with Tommy Tiernan, as conversation with the comedian usually involves meandering and surreal – though highly entertaining – digressions, thus rendering pre-prepared questions slightly redundant. Immediately after my first query (a terrier-like “what are you up to at the moment?”), I feel fully vindicated in my decision.

“I’m behind a new campaign to try and get travellers to invest in property,” declares Tiernan, already off on a comedic sally. “They’ve got a lot of cash and I think it would be a great way of reintegrating them into the settled community.”
Perhaps they should be allowed to operate tax-free casinos as a form of reparation, as happened in the US with Native American tribes.
“Now you’re talking,” replies Tommy, pondering the idea. “Stop ‘n’ Gamble.”
In terms of your career, though, I continue, in a deft switch of interlocutory tack, what have you been working on lately?
“I’m starting on a new show, which I’m workshopping in Galway at the moment,” explains Tommy. “It’s going really well. I’m starting an Irish tour in September, so I’m trying to think of a new approach for that. As well as trying to get better as a comic, I’m interested in playing around with stuff theatrically, and seeing what’s possible in terms of the space. That if you’re inviting a thousand people into a room, that you give them more than just words, and something for the eye as well.”
What did you have in mind?
“I’ve been thinking about stuff like, how far can you push it and still keep it interesting and funny? Everybody’s used to having, say, a chorus onstage, like a gospel choir. Whenever that happens, it’s really uplifting. So I’ve been thinking about how you could fuck around with that idea. Could you have a Down’s Syndrome gospel choir, or a choir of itinerants, or a choir of old women? It’s about fucking around with pre-conceived gimmicks, but still keeping it funny for the audience and having them respond to it in a good way.”
Set to join the stellar line-up at the Budlight Revue festival this month, last year found Tiernan embark on an extended tour of the US. A true comedy buff, he talks very enthusiastically about the clubs he played on the trip, and is full of praise for American stand-up, in particular sadly deceased Mitch Hedberg (“a cross between Jim Morrison and Woody Allen”). After the obligatory dialogue on Denis Leary and Bill Hicks, we segue – rather unexpectedly, it has to be said – into a discussion about Bill Cosby.
“He’s a master stand-up,” opines Tommy. “He’s like some old, genius Russian composer. He walks out, he’s gentle, and he takes his time over the stories, which are perfectly constructed. He’s not like Eddie Murphy or Chris Rock, where the subjects range from sodomy to… sodomy (laughs). Cosby’s stuff is all very family orientated, but it’s perfectly constructed and very funny. He does a lot of stories about growing up with his brothers, and what his Dad was like, and kids that he knew, but it’s perfectly realised comedy.”
Talk of the business side of being a comedy performer leads Tommy to reveal that he played a gig for Niall Quinn, Roy Keane and the Sunderland team following the club’s victory in the Championship.
“That’s one of those situations where you do your work, and you place it in the public arena, and you let whatever happens, happen. I was very nervous about it, because it was in a very formal setting. They’d just been presented with the medals and the trophy, and with so many Irish over there, they thought that it would be a great way of marking the occasion. It was a great gig and it was nice to meet them afterwards. It was good to have a yap with Roy and Niall and Graham Kavanagh. It was brilliant.”
Tiernan’s stint in America last summer also saw him perform on The Late Show With David Letterman, on a stellar bill that included Robert Duvall and Sonic Youth. How did he find the whole experience?
“It was very nerve-racking,” recalls Tommy. “It happened through the Montreal comedy festival. All the American bookers come to that, and I got introduced to the guy who books Letterman. I think he said something like they only have five or six overseas comedians on during the year. I think they approach it very much from the point of view of what Dave himself likes, so I was told not to do material that’s physical or zany, cos he prefers spoken word stuff.
“Then what happens is that they book you to perform on a Monday. On the Friday, Saturday and Sunday beforehand, they take you to two or three comedy clubs a night in New York, and you work on the seven minutes that you’re gonna do. And you go over and over and over your stuff until, word for word, they know what you’re going to say and they’re happy with it.”
Tommy certainly felt a bona fide member of the glitterati on the day of the recording.
“On the day of the show, a limo picks you up from wherever you are and takes you to the Ed Sullivan Theatre,” he says. “There’s a load of autograph hunters outside, and when the limo pulls up there’s this huge sense of anticipation. My girlfriend is quite stunningly gorgeous, so when we got out of the limo, nobody had a fuckin’ clue who I was, and everybody asked Yvonne for her autograph! I was really nervous, my throat was dry for the first minute-and-a-half of the performance. You do it, and afterwards, you get a quick hello with Dave Letterman, who said, ‘You were very funny, we’d love to have you back.’
“But it was amazing, because by the time I got back outside, people had downloaded photographs of me from the internet, and they were looking for autographs. It’s just a different thing… in RTÉ, you say ‘Howaya?’ to the girls on reception and a hackney comes to bring you home!”
Tommy Tiernan plays the Bud Light Revue Festival in Iveagh Gardens, Dublin on July 27 and 28.