Here's the first of three excerpts from our interview with Irish comedy genius, Tommy Tiernan. We'll be putting part two up at the end of this week, with part three to follow on Monday. Alternatively, you can read the lot in the latest print edition of The Big List. Enjoy!
Tommy Tiernan isn't your everyday comic. His persona is packed with complexity and contradiction managing to be spiritual yet irreverent; fearless yet apologetic; scathing yet soulful. It's not surprising then that many fail to understand Tommy's love of stretching the rules. Citing the revolutionary comic, and once jailed, Lenny Bruce as his main influence, Tommy has received slaps on the wrist from an Archbishop and an Irish TD. But Tommy is not about malice or meanness. He shoots on instinct, from the hip and with no particular target. With his thick Navan accent, Tommy spoke to The Big List ahead of his latest Crooked Man tour, having sold four nights on the trot at the Ulster Hall. We began asking Tommy about the tour, which we were led to believe by the press blurb is about turning 40. Why was it such a major event that it made him do a show about it? "The show isn't about that at all actually, I think there are two stories in the show about turning 40. The fact of being 40 is only a side reference and I've no idea what the show is about, and I'm kind of glad I don't. If I knew what the show as about there'd be no point in doing it. Every time you do it you're trying to figure it out, trying to improve it, trying to change it." So even if the show was little to do with it, had turning 40 been a big deal? "I have noticed there's a bit more fire in my belly, I don't know if I'd attribute that to it though. But there's a bit more lunacy a bit more wildness." We asked if it was like the beginning of the old age phenomenon where the elderly can do whatever they want, and say whatever you want? A process sent up by many comedians. "Yeah, isn't that fantastic! It's like being seven. I've noticed I'm a bit less apologetic maybe about some things. I don't mean that in an aggressive or abrasive way. But I'm a bit more 'this is what I do' or 'this is the way I dance'." Tommy has been on the stand-up for some 15 years. Winning the prestigious Perrier Award at the very beginning of his career. We wanted to know if being a comedian has changed in that time, or have audiences changed? "You can only describe it from your own experience. I suppose my attitude towards it has probably changed. I feel a bit more comfortable and I take more risks in terms of being more spontaneous. "When I started doing stand-up it was a new thing in a sense in Ireland. I was part of the first kind of flurry of stand-up comedy clubs, and we used to do college tours, which hadn't existed before the mid 80s, late 90s. I think now audiences only see stand-up on tele, with the mainstream shows on BBC TV, like the Michael McIntyre show and live at the Apollo show. I think if that's you're only experience of stand-up you'll be more easily shocked when you go to an actual stand-up live. You can have a wilder, more soulful night. Part two of our interview with Tommy will be online Friday 21 July.
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