- Culture
- 26 Feb 04
Dara O Briain on the joys of multiple press interviews.
Greetings Hoot Press. Now I know this piece has a tendency to be like a “shout out” for the Irish comedy world, but I haven’t been in Ireland in months though, so welcome to my bitter world instead.
I’m writing this on a Monday, and on Wednesday I have to do a Press “day” in order to plug the show in Vicar St on March 14 (yes, yes, the joy, the guffaws, the roaring punters, yadda, yadda). Seven interviews in three hours. So please regard this as an apology for the seven dull, identical interviews you may have seen me do already this week, and a guide to the levels of mis-information I’ve been spouting.
Comedians are poor enough interview subjects at the best of the times, especially when asked to talk about themselves. To be blunt, if I had anything funny or insightful to say about myself, it would already be material. And if it was material, I’d sooner tell the story on stage for about 10 years, rather than using it up in the entertainment pages of the Examiner, or whatever.
So I make a terrible interviewee. I’m guarded and unspontaneous (mentally watching the words spool out of my head, as on a viddy-printer, and cringing even as I speak) or I’m a gabbling idiot. It’s long been observed, that for someone who has built a career in communications, I can be quite the mumbling, stuttering fuck at times.
Take this gem of mine from a recent newspaper interview: “I was a lot less sorry than I thought it would be!” I have no idea just what the fuck I was trying to get across there. But it was said with verve, judging by the exclamation mark.
I’m doing a UK tour at the moment (yes, yes, smiling faces, the encores, the walls echoing with happy laughter, yadda, yadda) and so have to do one of these press days every week, for a collection of local newspapers from towns you have never heard of. Hello the Selby Advertiser! Big up the Stockton-on-Tees Evening News!
What was that? How did I get started? Surely you don’t want to know that, it’s really dull. Oh you do? Shite, here we go again…
Other questions to which there are no funny answers: When did you first realise you were funny? (Arrogant prick). Are English audiences different from Irish audiences? (Bigoted arrogant prick). How would you describe your style of comedy? (Bigoted arrogant prick who has no idea what his style of comedy is).
Honestly, we just want to do the damn shows (what with the happiness and the audience slapping their thighs and the rocking back and forth and yadda yadda). All the funny stuff is out there. We’re not holding it back, in the hope that some regional entertainment correspondent will unleash a torrent of genius with their questions. No, the good stuff is in the show. So, again. Apologies for all the shitty interviews.
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Dara O'Briain plays Vicar St. on Sunday March 14 as part of the St. Patrick’s Festival celebrations.