Too tight to mention

As he likes to point out at the beginning of his shows, he’s “not the love-child of Chuck Norris and the Bee Gees” but Cork comic Keith Farnan is certainly enjoying a growing profile in the world of stand-up. Kilkenny-bound for The Cat Laughs festival over the June bank holiday weekend, Farnan has appeared on Michael McIntyre’s hugely influential Comedy Roadshow, and is currently developing a TV project based on his Edinburgh show from last year, Sex Traffic: How Much Is That Woman In The Window.

The show started to take shape when Farnan spotted a news item noting the arrival of the ‘Peek-A-Boo Pole Dancing Kit’ in the children’s toy section of Tesco.
“We’re still at the pilot stage,” explains Keith. “We’re calling it Can Women Have It All? The idea is to film the stage show and then at various points, cut away and explore some of the things I talk about. There’s a variety of interviews and stuff like that. The main issue that came out of it was the question that’s posed in the title, and wondering how do you answer it? We’ll talk to a mixture of women in politics, art and comedy. The important thing with the comedy I do is to hit the funny stuff first and then explore the issues behind it.
“A lot of the stuff you come across is quite shocking, in terms of the pressure women are under. Having it all isn’t just about the career and the family anymore; it’s about having the perfect body. Because I’m not a woman I don’t have an agenda, or a “vigenda” as some people are calling it. I can explore it from a neutral perspective. With regard to the original stage show, Sex Traffic, we’ve been trying to chase down Tesco to get a comment from them about the fact that they were selling the ‘Peek-A-Boo Pole Dancing Kit’, which did actually come with a pole, garter belt and fake money, which is extraordinary.
“As well, Primark were selling push-up bikinis to seven-year-olds. It’s the sexualisation of kids and you’re looking at it going, ‘This is wrong, it’s completely out of order’. One of the ideas I’m trying to explore is, ‘Should you ID girls before they buy sexy clothes’, so that they can say, ‘You can’t buy this – you’re not over sixteen.’ But then that’s putting the blame on the girls and not the society or the shops that are selling the stuff. You wonder how someone can buy their ten year-old girl a ‘Porn Star’ t-shirt. It’s like, ‘Really, is this where we’re going? We’re worried about paedophiles – I wonder why?’
You wonder if a paedophilia superstore can be far off.
“Just call into the Vatican!” quips Keith.
Keith is also currently honing his Edinburgh show for this year, Money Money Money, which explores the financial crisis.
“It’s tricky because there’s so much anger out there,” notes Keith. “You’re just trying to pierce it a little bit. It’s hard to talk about a lot of the stuff, because people are genuinely losing their jobs and towns are dying all over the place. The show is trying to explore what happened before we got here and how we’re going to get out of it, but also, it’s not just about money, it’s about the stress people are under. Irish people don’t do therapy – we do the pub.
“Therapy for me is basically conversation meets disaster. It’s like the captain of the Titanic going up to the iceberg and saying, ‘Why do you do this? What happened to you when you were younger?’ And the iceberg going, ‘People are always saying that I never showed my true feelings.’”
Is Keith exploring the issue mainly from an Irish perspective?
“I can’t help but do that,” he acknowledges. “It looks at Ireland as a springboard, in terms of what’s happened in the last year, the IMF and all that sort of stuff. It looks at money as the new religion, and asks whether Jesus was a capitalist or a communist. And whether Mohammad was a capitalist or communist, although we’ll keep that part of the show very quiet. There won’t be any cartoons in that part of the show!”
Farnan is a lawyer by training and makes the point that a lot of his comedy deals with the subject of inequality. Interestingly, as a young law student, he did a Summer internship office of Barry Scheck, who was member of OJ Simpson’s defence team.
“He set up a thing called ‘The Innocence Project’ in New York, which basically worked on forensic cases,” says Keith. “They knew DNA and they were testing to free people. Thankfully, he set up The Innocence Project before the OJ case – if he set up The Innocence Project and then did the OJ case, everyone would have said he was taking the piss! But it’s amazing work they do. Anyone you hear of who’s been freed in America, who’s been in prison wrongfully in the last 15 years, it’s probably Barry and one of the guys behind it.
“And it’s all free legal aid – the legal system in America is completely screwed. There’s no public defence system really. Well, there is, but it’s totally under-funded.”
Undoubtedly one of Keith’s biggest moments to date was appearing on The Michael McIntyre Comedy Roadshow. How did he find the experience?
“It’s amazing how can things can change,” reflects Keith. “You’re working away, and I had my head down, doing my show in Edinburgh. Then suddenly you do a show like that, and there was an audience of I think six million on the first go. And every time I do a gig in England, people come up and go, ‘I saw you on the show.’ In terms of festivals, headlining shows and getting your name out there, it’s a great hook. You always want the work to speak for itself, but at the end of the day, you just can’t beat TV exposure for getting you that little bit extra work and recognition.”

The Cat Laughs Comedy Festival takes place in Kilkenny over the June Bank Holiday weekend, Thursday 2 – Monday June 6. Tickets are on sale now at www.thecatlaughs.com