273 - Paddy Raff - The Tom O Mahony Show

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Well, what's the crack everybody?How are you getting? Non? Welcome
to another episode of the Hamon ManyShow. It's been a couple of weeks,
hasn't it by Jesus Christ? Welllook at it. If you do
follow me on a regular basis,you'll understand that things were kind of bananas
with other podcasts and stuff like that. But don't we worried. We're back
on track. We're getting we're gettingepisodes out mad. I'm starting to realign
a couple of things. The RugbyWorld Cup is over, so we'll be

(00:23):
still doing the Odd Rugby podcast withBanana and Bear Rugby podcasting. It's your
first time hearing that that you're likewhat the Christ? Myself and an a
kapalist former Ireland player, we dida very funny rugby adjacent rugby podcast during
the Rugby World Cup. We've donethe six Nations, the women's six Nations,
and we will be coming back forthe men's six Nations and the women's

(00:44):
six Nations in early well I supposejust nearly this starts in winter, nearly,
doesn't it, and we'll be tippingback in with our how to Rugby
rugby and all the rest of thebutery you know, and of course such
as Hamm and Jerry Show too,will be coming to a halt with that
in the next week or so.So now my life is starting to align
the small bit and I can getback to my own podcast. I have
been continuously doing the Patreon podcast Patreonexclusive podcasts, have been doing live ones

(01:07):
of those and putting out stuff everyweek for the Patreons, which is your
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(01:30):
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(01:51):
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cork tonight for the second episode orsecond episode, second night of my tour.

(02:12):
I'm in Collins, which is whatcor people call Cockland's, which is
what British people call Kufflin's, andand there tonight. I don't know if
there's any tickets left. It wasfairly sh It's fairly full by the sounds
of things a couple of days ago. So as I'm recording this, it
sounds fairly full. So it soundsfairly full in the future, which it
makes no sense whatsoever. Put trycome tonight, Come tonight. Go to

(02:37):
the link in my below in thenotes and have a gander at Tom's tour
dates. There's a bunch of comingup. There's gonna be more at it.
I just got a message right now. I think I'm bringing another one
to Cork, but it'll be WishCork and yeah, there's a gang of
min there I'll be filming. Ifyou're going, Oh, do you know
what, I'll wait next year I'mby himself or herself a present for it.
Well, do you know what?Come to the one in Galwayway.

(03:00):
March first is where I'm gonna befilming the special. It's gonna be a
live taping, as they say inthe comedy world, March first, so
you know, come along to thatone and we we'll all get our hints
on some kind of version of Telly. It'll be great crack if you would
support it. So that's all Ihave to tell you about news and whatnot.
If you want to need to knowand more about me, come on
over. Be a Patreon join thegang. It's very easy to go through

(03:22):
the show notes, click through thePatreon thing and hey, presto, you're
in the gang. Look at Movingon to today's guests. We ran into
each other for the first time.We knew each other, you know,
virtually, but we ran intach otherfor the first time during the Galway Comedy
Festival a week or so ago andgot on Powerful. I said we need
to talk on the podcast, andI wasn't wrong, By Jesus Christ,

(03:43):
this is a lot of fun.Four weeks office too long, and you
know what, this man will beback again. I can't wait to run
into the next time and back upa round. But you know, but
weait a powerful time. Please sitback and enjoy the mighty Paddy Raff,
Paddy Raff, Paddy is it Rafferty? Is it Rafferty? Yeah? Who
Liam is Rafferty? Yeah? Whatfuck? You could have just went,
I know, something's actually just Rath. I'm Greek. Yeah, it does

(04:05):
actually sound great. The reason thatchanged or didn't change it, so you
see it called Patty Raff in schoolthat was just like Paddy Raff Party Raff
and then having a call there foryears really apart from a few friends.
And when I started doing stand upthen the guy that was putting me on
from the first ever, you know, like open mics, like what's what's
your name? And I was justthinking like Patrick Graffordy on a poster it

(04:28):
sounds like a solicitor, you know, Patrick Grafferty and sons it doesn't inspire
comedy, so just stick down,Patty Raff. And actually I'm not in
the shad at the minute. SoI've moved house recently, and in the
shad is a bit like yours.I've got like a man he've kind of
set up. They're working, andI have the poster. My sister got
the poster from the first ever gigthat it did and had it framed.
And there's there's always something like thesethings always haunt our family where they never

(04:50):
get it right. And it's justPatty r if not two, yes,
just one. So it sounds likeI'm some sort of you know, ex
serviceman, you know, doing theabout PTSD and you know the Second World
War. But then yes it's Pattyr f On on the first post there.
But yes it's gone by that sense. Look that's Jesus Christ. My

(05:11):
name gets messed up the whole timebecause they put it an E before the
Y. You know, many don'tneed, no need at all, but
for some reason it's in so manypeople. But Paddy Wrath like would just
stop at the one. If Iwouldn't I chanced the second one, I
go, I'd see Rafferty there areyeah, fuck it, we'll just look
he won't give out if we giveher an extra if it'll be fine.

(05:31):
But Paddy Wrath like, yes,the first and last time that that happened,
thankfully, But yeah, that lookslike r F on the poster and
being from West Belfast and being associatedwith the with the forces isn't isn't the
best? Like but you're the irony. Yeah, you're called Paddy r EF.
Paddy would give it yea the mostoxymoronic name. Yeah, yeah,

(05:57):
yeah, how'd you get in?Did you hang about in Golwick? Because
we met properly in Golwick? Ityou crack instead in a tough that was
a tough an odd environment. Butyou could tell a man, you could
tell a man that has played mentalgigs, like I e. When you
were talking about the weddings and stuff, I went, oh, this makes

(06:19):
sense because you would have played yeahthe same way to three people in that
brightly little room as you did tothe one hundred people that were in the
brightly little room. Yeah, itdidn't make a difference. It's mad.
I think it's really it seems tobe an Irish thing because I played in
the wedding band before and that thatis obviously features in the stand up.
And yeah, whenever we used togig in the wedding band, I hated

(06:42):
doing weddings in especially in June,and that's normally sort of when wedding season
kicks off. But when people bookyou for a wedding in June, they
typically have you started at about halfit and it's still bright and see trying
to get a bunch of Irish fellasin, you know, sort of on
one of the few warm days anddry days in the year to listen to
me playing fucking brown eye girl orwhatever. It's just never happened. Anytime

(07:04):
we gigged. We did some reallyhard gigs where people will be out and
they're just not coming in. Soto have people in the room even though
it was bright, was was abig start. But yeah, it was
a weird one. What was ittwo o'clock in the thing and everybody died,
Yeah, but it was it wasdead on. It went, it

(07:25):
went well, and it was oneof those ones where I think, you
know, so I sort of stundedfive years ago and I kind of like
take two years out of that becausewith the pandemic, you know, where
it was doing no real, youknow, live stuff. But I think
had that have come within the firstsort of six months to a year of
me doing stand up, I wouldhave crumbled, you know. I would
have just been like, what's goingon? But you just have to accept
it. It's a bunch of Irishpeople in a hotel room during the day,

(07:48):
it's bright, they're all hungover,so yeah, so yeah, I
took that one as a win andit was good crack and I really enjoyed
it, you know, and youyou got them warmed up great, and
as the day went on, theyseemed to, you know, take off
was it? Two more? Twomore after that, two more after that?
And I had confidence in it becauseI did it the day before.
And while people weren't particularly hungover,what I noticed was people were in on

(08:09):
the They were kind of in onthe madness of it. They were like,
yeah, so we're going to threeokay, so do we keep our
coat on or take Okay, thisis fucking weird. And I think everybody
accepted that we're in this snazzy ballroomlike in all the way in the middle.
That was hardingman, But that that'swhat it was. I said that
I basically got a guaranteed stand innovation, but that was because everybody had to

(08:33):
get up and walk out of thelike I'm taking that to stand innovation no
matter what. So okay, Iwas going cracks, so I didn't do
any more other gigs in that day. I hung about and went a couple
of other shoes. Was up inthe roachhing Dove later on, and I
saw Mickey upstairs and then calling downstairswith chatting with them as well, So

(08:54):
I was cracked to get down andexperience it for the first time. I
really enjoyed it, that's the thing, because I hadn't seen you before and
it was like, oh, thisis perfect for somebody come in the like
class to comfort because always such aneat little city, do you know what
I mean? You can nip.You can literally nip from one gig to
another. It's like there's nothing init. You might stop for a pint,
even just for the crack halfway,like yeah, it's a perfect,
perfect spot. But they it wasgreat to see such a variance, like

(09:18):
because I hadn't seen you at itbefore and it was like, yeah,
perfect, this he works perfect?Yeah why not? Of course this makes
perfect sense? But yeah, Iknow I had to bow out. I
was and I just barely got thecar out because you put the shitters up
me actually because I thought it wasa great man on the Sunday. You're
like, oh, no, Tom, I think the charge. I've been

(09:39):
burned too many times where I'm youstand reading the sign and you ever did
that. You're reading the signs andyou're not really taking it in because I
took in nothing. So I justspent you know, f and doubt steck
the you know what was a fouror five year in so I haven't touch
weight. I haven't got hit witha fine yet. I not. I
was expecting to see something to stickaround the car and and I was like,

(10:01):
oh, maybe a sneaky bass.Just just they just record your number
plate or whatever and just head on. Yeah, because the amount of times
I put coins in on a Sundayto be safe and the next thing goes,
yeah, you've got a good fourhours now on Monday. The fuck
see. I'm hoping that because ofBrexit it's going to fuck up the whole
cross border prosecution thing because they usedto you know, it's been very I

(10:24):
used to work for a flow doyou know the M fifty tolls. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, so the guysthat do that, the contactless gantry
thing you drive on there and readyour number. I used to work for
them in a call center and uryand people used to think up north that
you can get away with it nobody. And then you were basically getting calls
and people have got you know,uh, you know, death collecting letters
and they're like, they're like,what the fuck is that's downside And even

(10:46):
the most ardent Republicans will turn intothe most launch Unionist and that's fucking ridiculous.
That's a different company down there.And you're like you're literally in the
continuity d and you're arguing the fuckingsemantics on the border. Used to get
so many people, like people withlike loads of fats over their names,
arguing like kinded like the most staunchunionists like Celtic fucking font and everything and

(11:13):
there, yeah, changes the fontand all. But yeah, that was
I love working for them because youused to actually get to see So there
was a review team, so theywould photographed the cars going through and read
the number plates, and then therewas a review team where if they couldn't
read the number plate, you know, when you had the sort of you
know, a human had to lookat it then they would come to us.
But also about anything that came throughthe country that wasn't a car registration

(11:39):
would come through to us. Sowe had people coming through and horses and
traps, you know, pony andtrap you know, like travel up the
m fifty people run on it inthe middle of the night, no,
like they would set off the cameraand all sorts of weird vehicles. And
then one time we got this fleetof cars that came through and all their
number plates were blacked out and wewere like what says but we were kicking

(12:00):
it up the up, the sortof commanding and the treat went cold,
and it turned out it was likesome sort of Saudi government thing that happened
and they weren't supposed to be inIreland or something like that, and it
was it came out in the newsa few months later what that fucking was.
So it was interesting days back there. Like Jesus, there's a great
bit in that actually that I wasjust listening on. That's actually a cracking
bit to talk about how the boysgo from being the staunch fucking Republicans to

(12:24):
go, you know, putting onthe fucking the Queen's Jubilee music in the
background, like no, no,no, no, anything they get out
of a fifty year old fan,you know, stick up the hard border.
God bless fucking flow. They havegotten me because I would only It's
one of the most responsible things I'veever done as an adult is to actually
take out a membership and and Italk, you know, the tag because

(12:48):
I will never ever have enough changein the car. Never. Yeah.
Then that was one of the thingsworking for them was funny was that people
would say whenever it was years andI was probably fifteen, Yeah, a
couple of fifteen years. People wouldgo, I didn't know you had to
pay, and you're like, butthe road signs are there, and they
go, but I didn't read theroad signs. And then they go,

(13:09):
then you can't drive your fucking car. You can't just go read road signs.
They're like, And we were ableto tell them exactly how many signs
and what each sign said, soat this point it says this, and
then yeah, but I didn't readthat, and they go, would the
cops take that as an excuse?With the guard saying, oh, right,
you didn't see you were doing onehundred or you know whatever so was.
But then I got caught with ita few years later and then on

(13:31):
the other side of the fence wecome up all time, and I was
like, fuck, kind of Iget caught up with that and you do
start going get the side show onthere ring these Bostards was was a Belfaster
were you're born raised? Yeah?Yeah, right right for no So you
were saying you were you were overin jury, was it? Yeah,

(13:52):
so like it's not that far yeahof course, yeah, yeah, twenty
five minutes dying. That's right onthe border. And it was like it
was boontime, boom time for Muriwhenever depend what way the economy goes,
Yes, not be really well foryou know, like the fucking all the
southern ones come up for all theirtheir drink and their fags and then if
whatever way the economy tips, thenthey're all going down there. So it's

(14:15):
just fucking you know. And Iwas down whenever it was booming, working
on the call center and the keys, and I was lovely. It was
great crack. And I always assumedthat like being from Belfast and having worked
here, I just thought everybody wasas duor and fucking you know, we
can be real just sorty bastards whenyou're working with this. And I just
I was like, as the wayit is everyone people, you'll enjoy Uri.
You'll enjoying Uri. And I waslike, I'd never worked out,

(14:37):
said Belfast, never really been toofo I'd say. And the first dag
going down, I was like,there's a fucking different world law together.
You know, it would be thedifference between going from Dublin to you know,
or you doning Tipperary or whatever.You know, Yeah, it's like
there's a massive difference in this,in the culture and the style and the
way they talk to each other.And I just I love working in Urie.
And I remember the first day Iwent down, there was a guy

(14:58):
standing like the and I was needinglet in. Then he's just smoking a
fag and I was like, oh, I've just like I've got this meeting
to go to a nine with theclients. He's like, oh, he
says, and I would say itwas like fucking Sitanta. Do you remember
Satanta, the sports channel Satanta meeting. It was like yeah, it's like
and then comes can fucking wait AndI was like, right, okay,
and eventually like five pass and hesays, mon buzzy And I was chatting

(15:18):
this guy and I was like,look, I may go at meeting like
the sort of head of the department. He's like, no, no,
that's me. He was the fuckinghead of the department. But I was
working and he just came walking andsaid it was all taught and they were.
I was just you wouldn't get thatin Belfast is so straight laced.
The fucking tie don't know. Hejust knew how to do it, like,
and I love working down there,so it was e flow was in

(15:39):
there for about a year that Iworked on. It's funny you say that
because people don't. I don't thinkpeople believe me when I say it.
How especially like comedy and jokes andand acting. The bollocks is kind of
a it's kind of a currency incertain places around the country, but not
in others like County by county.It does changed, like it really,

(16:02):
like the attitude and even in certainparts of counties, like I'll never forget
that they we moved from Dublin.We're renting a house like five hundred yards
from where Yeah, half am Ileaving from where I grew up and I
rangked you oil in the tank.You know, I've rang my card out,
and I was all very doubling aboutit. The old fuck here we
go now okay, and you know, normally like they would say, Rafferty's

(16:26):
oil. You know this is rapidthe oil. How may I help you?
I swear to God. The guyanswered the phone went well, I
love it, completely fucking disarmed mestraight away. I was like, well,
I was, well, how's itgoing, and like he's like,
I'm from there, but he's stilltotally threw me. And I explained this,

(16:48):
I want oil and all the restof because grand I don't know.
I wanted to. I have fuckingsome. I said three or four hundred
years worth of it. I didn'tknow how much did that put the tank
didn't make a difference. The guysays, where are you? So I'll
give you the came the full address, fucking postcode, air coat the whole

(17:08):
lot, and after all his bullshit, he he turned around and went,
yeah, now tell me where youare what so I described the neighbors' houses
near ah. I know you areno bother and then hung up. Didn't
take a card. Nothing. Ididn't know what the fuck to do?
I went, I'll give it anhour and I'll ring back. It might

(17:30):
be somebody less mental when you know, less than an hour, I was
at the fucking kitchen window, justjust filling up the kettle, and is
what can only be described as Golliverlooked in the fuck a back window at
me, like the biggest white personI've ever seen a monster, looked in
the back window that's all full now, and just jumped in the truck and

(17:52):
just have down the road to him, And I got, how did you?
I rang three more times after that, and then they said, ara
will and they sent out a letter. And then I rang back with the
letter. And it wasn't like therewas a specific fucking customer code on it
or anything. It was just abug basic letter. I mean now,
kind a pagement. Yeah, likeI think they were operating still earn chicks

(18:15):
and stuff like that to be said, But I don't know, don't It
was operating at their time. Andyour man had a man. This guy
was in no hurry on the phone. He didn't care about selling oil.
He knew it was going to sellanyway. It's iland, it's fine,
it's fine. Literally, you allwanted, but it was the way he
disarmed me with the well and thenyeah, whatever, you can't teach that

(18:38):
like because that's that's that's like thekind of customer service that you need to
do when you're there. You know, it wouldn't work to be all you
know, like giving the official names. And when we used to train in
the call center, we used tohave to tran train people. The call
center is owned by like a UKcompany and they were based in London.
So used to saying out like theselists of things you can and can't say
on the phone, and you know, you know can say that you know

(19:03):
that no problem. No you can't. We're allowed to say no problems.
There were two negative words, sowe can't say no problem. And then
it was like, you know,you can't say yes sir, you can't
say you hear you. You knowyou're not able to call people hearrors in
the But it's like we used tohave to try and train people did not
do that, and it was soagainst the grain of what I There was
again praying from dairy and he thethickest dairy accent, but his stats were

(19:25):
great and it was a customer service. It was in buying calls for voter
Phone, I think it was.And he was brilliant and all the customers
rated him really highly and loved them, but they used to get marked down
on his quality all the time becausethey couldn't the London based managers couldn't understand
what he was saying. We canunderstand and they were like, this isn't
English, Like I can assure youhe's speaking English. One of the things

(19:47):
he said it was he was sayingto somebody to order phones back in the
day, like early two thousands waswhen I started working on just after school
when you would like order handsets andring up and you know. And he
used to say, you're phones willbe WHYI And I was like, your
phones will be WI, your phone'swit? Yeah, you know, your
phones will And so I was liketraining and I was like, you can't

(20:08):
say your phones will be why?Seem you run that the area your phones
will be why? That could beany language. He always says, who
WHAEI yeah, So that was likeyou can't say that, and it's like
slow down. So like the nexttime I lesson, they call it just
literally slowed down and just have yourphones will be way and it broke it

(20:33):
up doesn't mean any more sense.That's kind of I love that ship though,
But do you know what they usedto do? I don't know.
Is it Dell and a couple ofmore computer companies outsourced to where was it,
oh, to Summer and Kerry.There's a huge call center in Kerry
and it would only take on nativelocal people And there was a huge amount

(20:56):
of American companies were using them aswell, and I don't know what's their
Asian companies were using them to theAmerican market and you come on, hello,
come on, and immediately, ifyou had a complaint, you were
disarmed. And you were from fuTexas, you'd be disarmed immediately. And
that was they worked out that theyhad some algorithm worked out that their cadence

(21:19):
and the way they spoke was enoughto take the heat out of any fucking
route. Could you imagine that startedtraining people had to be a carry accent
round the word, no matter whereyou're from, a carry accent. That
is the one I want. AndI'm in my head, I'm trying to
do it. And it's definitely goingto sound fair racist to talk about,
like, but yeah, you're,yeah, trying trying to do it.

(21:47):
But it was you could see itworking, like you know. I remember
ordering It was a strange It waslike a was it a haunting jacket or
something. It was a tough kindof jacket, and I thought I could
order online this there's something wrong withyour your billings to just ring this number
free phone. So rang. Itturns out it was straight to America.
It was to Georgia and there's afree free phone. But I swear,

(22:11):
I swear to God, your wantlike they couldn't believe. Normally they actually
sell whatever way I found it,I should have bought it through an outlet
store or something or a vendor.I got straight to the crowd who made
the fucking thing. And your onewas I'd say, wouldn't get five phone
calls a day because it's normally justcustomers, like wholesale customers around America or

(22:32):
buying it. And this one passedme. I knew full well what they
were doing. They were passing mearound. Oh my god, can I
just go ahead and pitch you onhell right now? Actually, I'm going
to pass you over to our financialdepartment. And it was bullshit. It
was going around the office to justgo listen to this Leprechaun sounded I won't

(22:52):
lie. I hand it up todead Betty. I was like, good
marn, how are you you thatus no favors playing this absolutely I turned
into a fucking cow towing fucker.But they gave me a couple of quid
off and everything has sent me somefree ship with it. So I am
a hearer, That's what I am. I am if yeah, I am

(23:15):
an absolute whore. I couldn't fuckingresist it. The but so, yeah,
you what you grew up well WestBelfast? Yeah? Wild? Does
it fucking because some of the boysare telling me how fucking wild it was,
Like it's just sounds like, yeah, I grew so I'm I was
born eighty four. So like themy sort of very young childhood memories are

(23:36):
from the end of the Troubles,you know, like when when it sort
of finished about ninety four, whenI was ten, and like people think
that I've must been like sort ofpeter Night then, And the way I
describe it is that the trouble didn'tjust peter out. It kind of got
worse towards the end, a bitmore manic a but like the way I
describe it is do you know whenfootball when suddenly shouts gold the winner and
it's coming to the end, It'slike it felt like gold the winner.

(23:59):
So it got a bit bit festival, you know, you're to leave like
another fu Yeah, yeah, getthe bit lastside of it. So no,
it wasn't where I'm so I'm kindof like Andy time, which is
sort of the top coming up tothe top of the falls, you know,
the falls rude runs right right theway out, and I think it's
fairly you know, you know,you'd say the further down the falls that

(24:22):
you know, in the lower falls, the matter it gets. So we
weren't like right in the take,We're still still in West Belfast like so
it was. It can be.It depends the suppose. It's like anywhere,
you know, there's certain areas andit's it's not just one sliding scale.
There are certain areas even sandwiched inbetween other wee areas that are these
you know, like not that crazy, and then right right beside it is

(24:44):
mad. It'smad. I don't know, I don't actually know why that is.
But so yeah, I grew upin West Belfast, but like my
my ma and so basically I'm likeone quarter Protestant. And I didn't know
this. I thought I was likethoroughbred Catholic until it was is there anything
like that? Or yeah, Idon't know what what I'm what I'm entitled
to for it, for this,and yeah. So it was only whenever

(25:06):
I was about nine that at mymom told me that Mike granny, so
my dad's mom, had been aProtestant. She was born and raised a
Protestant. I never knew. Andshe was the most devout, scurly devout
Catholic granny, like you know,really in the mad Saints that nobody'd ever
heard of and all, you know, like like sort of like a Catholic
hipster. She was in the Saintsbefore and like you haven't heard of Saint

(25:27):
Ignatius, Yeah exactly, yeah,with it sat Thethias of fucking you know,
Guatemala, and you're like, whois this guy? But like so
she was and and genuinely that Ididn't know that she was a Protestant and
she was mad into the religion.And it was whenever she gave me a

(25:47):
card, did you ever see,like you know, whenever your granny would
give you a card, she wouldcell tate like two two pound coins in
her two pound coins in it,or like you know, our a fucking
you know a ten pounds oh twotop up, you know, I got
it on. It was it wasa relic inside we Brian relic and it
was a bit of Padre Peel stigmata. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah
yeah. This was like this wasyou know, fucking Protestant cryptonite. You

(26:11):
know, this was like the likeit was supposed to be a bit of
his actual So he was Padre Pealbecame Saint Peel, you know. So
again she was into him before hehit the big time, you know,
before he went me onstring scopulous.Isn't what they're called? What's that?
No? No, no, it'scalled no the relic you got, it's

(26:34):
always that browne for hanging around yourneck? How what you called it?
Yes, there you go, Yes, I forgot that name. Yeah that
that's buried somewhere. So yeah,that's what it was, for putting around
your neck. And I was likewhen I asked my my, my granny
what it was. She used toget words wrong all the time, and
she said it was it was abit of powdered Peel stigmatism and it was
stigmat I was like, this isa bit of his fucking eye here.

(27:00):
So I was like totally, youknow, blown, And I said to
my mom, what the hell isgoing on? Why is granny so crazy
about you know? And she says, look, she used to be a
Protestant until you know she was shemet your grande when he when he was
he was like all Ireland ballroom dancingchampion, which was a huge fucking celebrity
thing Martin, Hello, yeah.And then it turned out he we went

(27:23):
we were made the good the ballroomdancing as kids, me and my sister
because mcgranda did it and they wantthe day press and we were and I
hated it. And after about threeweeks I hitting it. There was these
huge nineteen forties pictures on the walland murals and the guy that owned the
place, Alan Clark, Moore meand says Cammary says he hating it.
They did give me a bit ofa pep talk and he says, that's
your Granddadler dancing with the guy thatowned the place, Cecil Clark. So

(27:47):
the two of them and it wastwo men dancing, and I was I
remember going, grand is gay.I was like first, first of all,
mc grandy Protestant and liked but thiswas it. This is what they
did apparently in the you know,I'm no the way like recently like strictly
have started to introduce same sex couplesand people were, oh, this is
disgraceful. It literally was the mostcommon thing back then because two really competitive

(28:10):
dancers. The best way to winwas if the two most competitive, and
so that quite often meant that twoyou got two meal dancers who apparently weren't
weren't gay, you know, Idon't know, but but so yeah,
like mad and so whenever I foundoutmc granny was Protestant, was just like
mind blown and yeah. So thenfor years and I was kind of couldn't
get my head around it. Andthen I've started saying it and stand up,

(28:33):
you know, like one quarter Protestantand somebody said, what quarter of
you is Protestant? Then you know, like surely you're you know, I
was like, I was like,no, this is one of the one
of the that was there. Hesays, you'll know what quarter is Protestant?
And then selt like a bat sixnil last night by Athletico, and
I kind of I kind of laughed, and I mean, I think that's
the one quarter Protestant when I laughedand Celtic getting beat. Maybe maybe that's

(28:57):
what it is. So yeah,like i'd I don't tend to tend to
tell too many people around West belfastedyour one quarter Protestant. But it's all
all kind of mixed up here nowanyway, because in fairness, Granny fucking
properly she went to the other sidehard by the sounds of things, because
she went from all things bright andbeauty over to the walled towns. She

(29:22):
and and this is this is doyou know what? It's always the laid
covers to the party that go thehardest, isn't it. That's completely that's
when when you turn up late.Yeah, when you start drinking late,
everybody else has had a new commn. You hit it too hard and the
momentum just takes you through the otherset. And that's what she genuinely was
from the shankle, which is,you know, the opposite of the falls,

(29:47):
you know. So her family wereShankle and then when she converted,
she had the leave like that herfamily disownder and she left and went and
moved in with her sister or herauntie who had done the same thing,
who'd converted a few years before.So she lived with her and it wasn't
until she was in her like lateseventies that as kids we started seeing these

(30:11):
you know, sort of sisters andcousins and stuff come over and it was
it was people Protestant ones that she'dlost touch with literally fifty years ago that
hadn't And then I think it waspart of the good Faridy agreement or something.
We got. We got a fuckingI didn't care. We got to
go to the Battle Moral for aslap of mail every few months. You
know, it's like, fucking,this is great. I love that.

(30:33):
Like fifty years go by, it'slike, what do you what you're gonna
do? Are you gonna do that? The times are different? Fact then
you know you was gonna have todo. Yeah. Anyway, how you
read, I got, I got. I did make a bit of a
full part of it all because someof her family moved to Scotland and they

(30:53):
ended up being like Aberdeen supporters andAberdeen are like sort of the the Aberdeen
are two heads what Rangers are theCeltic so believe anyway, and not that
so and as a gift they broughtover an Aberdeen kit for me. And
we were that broke and poor thatI never had an actual, you know,

(31:14):
brand new football kit of any description, you know, hammy down ship.
And I was like, fucking right, this is great, And I
was sticking on an Aberdeen kit andit only took one way fucker out in
the street the Turen and go Aurinaand they're like Rangers a Celtic and I
got my fucking malt knocked in over. It never got war a game,
but it was a lovely kid alltoo. But yeah, and I think
part of them was going here,momma, give this. We were going

(31:36):
over to the West Belfast year.I won't give this. We fucker and
the Aberdeen kid for sure, foxs it's hilarious. But I remember lads
in school like we're being Rangers whenRangers get But it was because obviously we
were so far from anything like that, wed no grasp of it. But
I think they're just nice kid,do you know? But I think to
say how little I understood was?I remember coming up on or twice Lad's

(32:00):
gone, why you weren't you know? Because what you earn't that because of
course Celtic was the whole thing,and it was I had no grasp,
but either I did have I didhave before that, I got a hand
me down Rangers goalkeeping top. Butit was the time when Rangers and Celtic.
I don't know if this was againthe tran stop people from you know,
sort of, it was like partof the past deal over there.

(32:22):
They used to have the same sponsors, so they had McEwan's logger, both
of them had sponsors and their goalkeepingkits where I'm pretty sure were exactly the
same bar the badge. So Idid have have what I assumed was a
fucking Celtic goalkeeper top and stuck iton one time went down the Wiglands and
again it only took an eagle eyedhair and I was like, oh ship

(32:42):
that is that's Rangers. So youhave to be careful, like hell the
crips and the fucking bloods have notthe hell before, get the hole kicked
off. And because of the top, because this game fuck the crips versus
the up there and exs and Fenianblood that big. Yes, yes,

(33:05):
I do. I find it fascinatingbecause and I can look at it now
with a humorous eye, because Ionly came to Belfast as a comedian really,
so when I hear people talk aboutit, I'm sure there are there
are lads with PTSD, and there'speople, you know, generational horrors inside
their head and stuff. But tome at the stage one night, and
I'd be I did the Black CabTour and I'm such a I'm such a

(33:28):
dumb bastard, Like you were talkingabout reading signs and not taking it all
in. This guy was pumping somuch info my way. I'm like,
oh, no, we've we've toppedout. We we we have topped out.
And I swear to God I hadthis. Do you ever find yourself
with just a fucking idiotic smile onyour face or just a face that's girning

(33:50):
like uh huh and or very alot of hard rs? Is all I
heard or in my head. Ihad to stop myself. And I count
myself to be so mut intelligent,but I had to stop myself and going,
ah, but like, do youknow, couldn't they just fucking get

(34:12):
along? This is yeah, thisis my solution to the whole thing,
Like, couldn't you just get along? A bunch of fucking white. He's
looking at each other just and Isaid, I think I said in leverage
that night or whatever club I wasplaying that night. It was just like,
but I was pointing out what afucking idiot I was for but I
topped out. There was just toomuch. There was so much. It

(34:35):
was like, you could give methe diet coke version of this son.
You are given it hard because you'rereally into the notion that I'm from Tipperary,
and it's like, well, Ineed a fucking not everything. No
you don't. Yeah, just giveme the bullet points, headlines headlines,
give me the stats, few keystarts and dates, and we're winning it
all finished. Let let me headon getting the fucking set right in here

(34:55):
for the material. The juke thatthat like, it's an old joke that's
been and I always loved it becauseit's like it's just it's it's in that
sort of category of Irish joke orNorthern Irish joke, and it's the one
about you know, because King Jameswas King William's cousin, wasn't there or
something? Yeah, you know,and social shows what I know. And

(35:17):
it's the day after the Battle ofthe Boy and he's escaped and he's been
in hiding and he's trying to getaway because he's defeated. And he goes
into the tavern before he gets onthis ship. The next morning and he
spotted. William comes William Warrange comesin with his man. Oh fuck,
look it is. It's James.He's like, oh fuck, not you,
Jesus Christ. What's from me?He says, what's wrong with me?

(35:38):
He says, I'm fucking got defeated. I lost whatever amount to my
main I'm not an exile. I'mfucking no more claim to the throne.
And you're asking me what's fucking wrongwith me? And William puts his arm
in and says, ash, sure, come on, it'll all be forgotten
about soon. It's fair when youthink about like the lads are probably like

(35:58):
yay in the moment, you know, like you hear sports fellas, you
know, after Mattress and stuff likethat. You know, look, we'll
review it on Monday. And Isuppose I'm just trying to put put put
things right, you know, yea, and but really just looking forward to
next week, I mean this wouldbe to you know, this would be
this would be tomorrow's chip paper.That's all I'm saying, you know,
And and some couple of you know, fairly defeated guys in the dressing room

(36:20):
there. So we're just kind oftrying to kick on and and and see
what we went wrong and see canwe rectify that for next week? You
know, you know, we've gotgot the troubles. We've got to focus
in the trouble tonight. You know, that's that's coming over the horizon.
Yeah, you know, hopefully,hopefully we're a good ship for partition,
you know, the partitions coming up, and a couple of that's coming back

(36:43):
from injury, you know what Imean. It's yeah, it's tough.
It's tough this time of the year. But you know, you know,
there's no medals one at this timeof the year either, So we just
have to press on and get justthe sports cliches and get something and that,
you know, like there is somethingin that. Yeah, I'm pretty
sure I have a long curly wigthat I could sit and I could sit

(37:05):
on a horse and do it allfrom horse, if horseback, if you
want, just and you get oneof them one of them things that they
interview the jockeys with that belongs Mercurymicrophone. You know, you just what
to be fair, there is atouch any any of those pictures I've seen
of King William. He there isa touch of Brian May about it,
Like isn't there yes, you know? Or is there a touch of King

(37:28):
William about Brian May? Yeah?I mean going either with it's all there's
people with tinfoil hats absolutely pulling themselvesoff right now they're going, oh my
god, the lads have abs.Finally, finally, now the lads will
start talking about the pyramids, greatbig pyramid somewhere outside Belfast. Yeah,

(37:50):
so you went from how did thewedding singion come along prior to like,
were you in bands prior to that? Was I suppose there's entertaining in the
family obviously with grandad. Yeah,yeah, that's true, that's true.
He was so Yeah, and thenthat through that, so my dady and
his son he was played sort ofharmonica and played and like trad bands and

(38:14):
things like that. And I wasalways sort of, you know, interested
in music, with a lot ofmusic knocking about the house and so yeah,
lur guitar when I was sort ofsixteen, and then the just from
doing that. It's one of thosethings where I never really had ambitions of
being in a band. You know, we're writing my own songs and like

(38:34):
fucking shoot gears and you know,like I was never into any of that.
I think I think that's maybe aworking class thing is that you can't
indulge your hobbies like that because you'renot going to make money off it and
you're gonna fuck it. So youneed to get a job, so straight
out of school, straight in theemployment, and if it was going to
play invest any time in playing guitar, I had to be getting paid.
So that's why I always had this. You know, maybe it's a bit

(38:58):
of a fucking you know, ashit goal to have, but I just
wanted to be in a covers bandand go out and play in bars and
you know, have the cracker tohave, like you're blessed to have a
voice as well, like I mean, well, I mean, but I
was never our lead singer. Thatwas the thing I was. I was
always kind of like harmonizing and youknow, playing guitar. We always had
had a good lead singer, whichwas good because like I can sing a
bit, but you need that topump it out all night. So yeah,

(39:22):
that's what it did. For aboutI started playing in a in a
band probably in about two thousand andtwo, went through a few different covers
ones, and then the one thatkind of stuck was the one then say
from two thousand and seven until tilltwenty nineteen, so twelve years I was
in the band, and that wasmy three pace band, but did weddings

(39:45):
all over the North down South aswell. A wee bit was it was
brilliant, It was great crack andI think that that kind of laid the
foundations for going on then to dostand up because you were getting up and
you know, taking the mic infront of people and being able to chat
and place songs and working in thecall centers as well. I was training
people, so it was the samething, bringing groups in, training them

(40:06):
for two weeks, you know,almost like a sort of a teacher.
So yeah, whenever, whenever Istarted doing stand up, it was kind
of I've been in training, ifyou like, for a good sort of
ten or twelve years, and Ithink that's why I kind of took off.
And it's not just why, butyou know I didn't have that through
up. Yeah, other yeah,it was I had a wee bit of
experience going on there, and likebeing a trainer as well, was like

(40:30):
being a stand up comedian. Youalways ended up with these certain jokes that
you would do and then eventually somebodywould sit in who'd been in. You're
like, you're cracking the same fuckingjokes you cracked whatever I thought that come
off the top of your head,and it's just like, do you think
that shit just happens naturally? Youknow, you need the you know,
so kind of already been doing itthat way. So those two jobs kind

(40:51):
of ended up, you know,sort of whenever I started doing stand up,
and I was still doing I wasstill in the wedd man when I
started stand up, and it wasafter about a year of doing stand up
that you know, was going reallywell on a selling mouth venues up north,
that I kind of went, Ican't be taking the piss and trying
to earn by doing wedding gigs inthe band and then also people to pay
to see me in the fucking ssse. You know, you kind of feel

(41:14):
like you're cheating people a bit.You know, you need to put you
know, your focus into it.So that that's why I kind of left
then was still love doing the weddings, but I left, and then then
the pandemic came and the band endedup getting off balled anyway, God help
them. So what they all happened? Were you doing sketches as well along
at the same time or when didthe spiles start? So whenever I started

(41:36):
doing stand up, which was Marchtwenty eighteen, it was kind of like
I was chatting to a few people. There was a guy that ran a
comedy night and he had he washe just started stand up. Cormick mcgermany.
I don't know if you know him, but he'd started doing stand up
and he did sketches online as well, and he kind of advised if you'd
set both things up, they cankind of feed into each other. You
know, your sketches can kind ofdraw people your stand up, and you

(41:58):
can also use, you know,your stand up as a way to promote
your online. So I started doingsketches. There were usually like snapchat filter
things and you know, just betssome pieces like that at the same time
as doing stand up, and theywere kind of going farral at the same
time as the stand up was goingwell, So they kind of fed off
each other to the point where fromdoing open mic to the next year,

(42:19):
within a year selling out the UlsterHall and then within a year that like
it's like both, Yeah, itwas one of those weird kind of perfect
time and if you like, youknow, in terms of starting stand up,
starting your own stuff on on socialmedia, and then you know,
sort of letting it feed off eachother. So within within a year a
year and a half of starting doingopen mic, nights had sold out the

(42:43):
s S and I was just fuckinggo, you know, to go from
from nothing to to that, andthen the pandemic came and kind of,
you know, put a stop tothat, but then it got the TV
show as well. It's all withina couple of years. So it's been
crazy, like world wind, butit's nice in a way that you've still
got so much to learn because Ilove going and seeing comedians. Like,

(43:04):
how long have you been doing standup? I suppose twelve Let me think
you'd say fourteen years if it wasn'tfor a pandemic, you know what I
mean? Or sorry, fourteen yearswith the pandemic, So I suppose twelve
years. Really, as there waslike there was there was I did.
I did a hell of a lotof podcast I never did. I saw

(43:24):
I saw stand up gigs online.That's like I can't, I can't,
I can't do Jesus no. Andso I actually ended up going with a
company that we did. We dida fair shot and they were kind of
like for corporates, a very wellstructured games do you know what I mean?

(43:45):
But you'd have to have a standup really and it will be a
tech then grabbing people like highlighting peopleand bringing them to you and had about
our curtains and you're doing crowd workto the whole thing. But then there's
things like all right, running getme and you just say tooth person and
focus batch the first person backs winsand I watch, you know what I
mean. So there was always goodgifts and ship like that. What he
tied in the brilliant the way theydid it. They tied in with like

(44:07):
drinks companies that would send out ahamper of drink to each house and you
were to only start drinking when thegames, when the show started, or
they could start a half an hourbeforehand. So you're meeting people mostly half
cut at home, you know whatI mean. So it was it was
all it was. It was allright, but I mean literally the second
they would end, you just clickoff the computer and just walk away like
there'd be nothing in or so like, you know, so bizarre. It

(44:30):
was any of them over the pandemic. I did a good few of last
like the last Christmas of the pandemic, I did a good few. Yeah,
no, I did, like theywere a bit so old destroying a
small bit as well, but Iremember I did one. Jess put some
money into it. It was forit was over in Galway again as myself
Jason Bourne at oh Lisa, Goddoes she even do stand up anymore?

(44:51):
But this phenomenal thing. They hadthese huge screens in this room and it
was the entire audience will say builtinto these, you know, but it
was through zoom technician or whatever.But it was as big, like their
heads were as big as your realhead, do you know what I mean.
So it was on the wall andit was inside in this room and
you're doing stand up, but it'sstill it was for all the money and

(45:15):
everything that it took to do it. It was like, honestly, if
I was standing in a horse boxand it was five people sitting outside it
it would still be superior. Itwas ridiculous like but still very like you
know, in innovative. We wantedto do outdoor ones, but through I
don't know, I think I thinkthrough what would you call it commercial espionage

(45:38):
and whatnot? People undermind us.They it was another company who was doing
the cinema things. They kind ofratted Yeah, the cops then, and
the cops in fairness, it wassuch a fucking stupid red tape time that
people going live performances. And Iwas going, but look at the fucking
reality. We're outdoors, they're intheir cars, they're tuned into the radio.

(46:00):
What the fuck? And even Iremember talking about one of the cops.
He was like the lead cop andLimerick, where were we fucking sold
sold over a thousand tickets to thisone show? And the cop was like,
I know, I fucking know,but they've run it up the chain
to as a series complaint in Dublin, and Dublin don't give one fuck about

(46:20):
us. So they just went,God, what is officially a serious complaint?
So shut down whatever the fuck itis you're doing down there. And
I remember thinking, oh, we'redoing if this is the level of fuckery,
like, yeah, thank we gotout of that because it was and
it got to that stage, likeyou say, professional espians where you're like,
how I'm detached from reality will becomethe people are looking at these fine

(46:43):
detail, you know, sort oflegislation like I did on that sort of
one of the I don't think itwas the first Christmas during the pandemic.
I think that was a compete rightoff, but I think it was twenty
twenty one where they were starting tocome ode of it and I booked.
I'd been asked to do nights inthe Europa Hotel and they we're going to
space everybody out, big ballroom.Make sure that you know so because it

(47:07):
was sort of spaced out. Itwas probably like four hundred as opposed to
I think you get a thousand andthey're seated, So they were spacing it
out, and then we ended upwith sold out six nights and everybody's chilting
at the bit to get out,just to fucking do anything, and the
restrictions and rules are changing, andlike you've seen my set that I was
doing a full are long set asmyself and then a half our set as

(47:28):
the sort of one of the characters. I do a Polish character, so
a lot of music in mind withthe guitar and in and out of music,
and then the Nigel character set ispretty much a musical set. It
waves in between and literally within abouta few days of it, they went,
oh, by the way, you'renot allowed to sing at this and

(47:49):
I was like, what, like, you're not allowed to sing? And
I was like, but can Ihave music? Yes, but you're not
allowed to sing along to the music. I was like, but my set
is so heavily as like I'll beaway from people, I'll not being in
their faces sing and you know what? Have I promised that no? And
I was like and then I saidmaybe if I get your screens. So
they're going to put perspect screens upand I was going to perform like fucking

(48:10):
I did it behind personal training inBelfast myself. It was and the most
pointless shit. I literally every fiveseconds and stick my head around the side
of this thing, going people,you know what? Everybody cool it?
It was wild. So basically theyand they said no to the perspect screens.
And then and then what I saidwas, well, then what if
I pre record some of the stuff? Went yeah, you can do that.
So for as a bit of ajoke, I pre recorded some of

(48:31):
it and mind along day and thenjoked going, I'm not singing the longest
because it's illegal for me to singlong at that time where the only time
everybody was allowed out was you hadto be eating. You're now to go
out and drink if you were eatingat the same time. So they were
all sitting down their meal and Iwas joking saying, like, we're not

(48:52):
at the stage where it's illegal todrink and it's illegal to get COVID unless
you're having gravy with it, andthat was what it was. It was
just fucking people and nobody was talkingin the dinner, just in the bizarre
times that night, and we didtwo nights. It was with Mickey Bartlett.
What was the name of the pub? It had a oh god,
we'll say it was. It hada name like the Arlington, you know

(49:14):
what I mean. It had aname like something comedy wouldn't normally be there.
But I did it a couple oftimes. No, it wasn't the
Argal, No, I've done.This was in Belfast and I don't know,
is it kind of a bit ofa Rugby road that we're on,
like there was you know, fuckingfew head bangers around anyway. But I
went up and as the fuck isthat joke? And Mickey started laving his

(49:36):
stuff stuff this fucking six foot byfour foot sheet of fucking perspects like hanging,
hanging from wires and like hazard taper. It was the hat feel I'm
pretty sure feel that's it, andthe caution taped like got it striped.
I this was That was my firstten minutes was gone, look at this

(50:00):
shit, and I got I'd blowon it because it was hanging. I'd
just blow on the back of it. Goes Oh. There was people to
the left and right of me.The room was fucking rammed with people breathing
into each other's ears, and behindthat I'm the dangerous one because obviously jokes,
you know, they had you know, one hundred and twenty percent,

(50:22):
and it was this whole thing wasthey were getting They must be I don't
know where they're getting where they're gettinggovernment grants or whatever or what was the
idea, but it was this thatwhole Jesus. I did a bit on
it too, because I just couldn'tnot give me the title. They call
it eat out. The help outis this and it was officially the title

(50:43):
of this thing, help out toeat out or eat out to help out.
That's right. I'm like, areyou they they brainstormed that, and
that's what they came up with.And I assume it was the female equivalent
of some horrific pervert at the topof the fucking company. You know,
she just smokes figs in ors likeyou. Now just imagine everybody was going,

(51:08):
yeah, that does sound like somedisgusting albue just came up with that.
Fucking Oh you know, it'll probablyhelp out non that too if you
fucking ate your out. And itwas like, I bet you delighted to
finish your grub now, you know. It's just but it was it was
beautiful, like it was just oneperfect storm of stupidity after another. Yeah,

(51:28):
nobody, you know, Oh no, you can't get up for your
drink, We'll bring it down toyou, like okay, that's crazy like
and that. But that was whatwas so funny about it, and there
it was. It was. Itwas a weird paradox of a time because
it was rich and commony, butyou can really get out to do it.
You know. And that's why forme, you know, having already
started and the making the sketches andgetting used to it like so quite quickly,

(51:51):
then I learned how to be ableto shoot at it and you know,
produce my own sketches. Not thatit has to be massively complicated,
but I know some and and comedianswho are so technically inept that it's almost
a shame that a lot of thestuff that they do they can't put it
online or they can't make a sketchthemselves. Like you'd be fucking You're made
for this kind of thing. Butunless you tech, you have that technical

(52:14):
kind of you know know what tobe able to put it out. So
during the pandemic, when the livestuff Abblet six stopped, I went in
there and started making sketches, andlike I was getting figures and numbers and
shures like I'd never done before.I've mean locally viril, you know,
like you know, a few thousandlikes or whatever, but these were going
megavarl and like I was getting peoplefrom around the world messaging me about them,

(52:36):
and I was like, is thisfor real? Like and the best
way to be able to tell thatthings were reaching a worldwide audience was normally
when you scroll down through you know, the faces of the people that have
liked it, it was white,white, white, white, white white.
And then genuinely, whenever I'd sayfuck video was up to twenty five
thousand, the colors would change,like a fucking Julux you know thing.
And then all of a sudden,you're in the brain and like there's literally

(52:58):
people from like Barbados stuff going,man, I love your accent and all,
please please come to Brazil. Youknow that that comment you obviously come
to I'm booking the real thunder Roomwherever the fuck they've got the velodroom.
But basically, yeah, that waslike but it was because the COVID stuff
was so relatable worldwide. You know, everybody was going through mad restrictions and

(53:22):
different things, so there was arelatability. And then it was funny that
once that ended, it's kind ofhard to do you kind of fall back
to your local audience because we don'thave that one thing that's connecting, isn't
I you know, so in termsof the COVID stuff. But yeah,
it was. It was just amad time and you kind of like,
this is literally the longest I've spokenabout COVID since book come out of it.

(53:43):
I think everybody's just decided we've hadenough of it, and nobody really
wanted to talk about it for agood while, you know, true?
And do you know what, we'llprobably get flagged for this as well,
But it was I don't give afuck, But also it's you're kind of
got yeah, but there was awhole planet no Craig, like, if
we're in a war, do youknow or something? You go, well,
there's a lot to talk about there. All of us had the exact

(54:05):
same fucking story, and it wasremissive me to miss out on the I
should have really gotten on the skatemaking of sketches. But do you know,
your heart and soul, isn't it? It felt like the heaviest amount
of work, even though I've actedin TV and movies and stuff. It
felt and I don't know why.It was just me being a lazy bastard,
really, but my brain telling meeverything going God, no, oh,
god, I can't oh, thisseems like a load of work.

(54:28):
Yet I will edit the video forthis podcast lovingly. I'll enjoy it,
do you know what I mean?It was I don't know why. And
I saw a few people went thesame, like went brilliantly the same way,
like Emma Dorn blew up, Yes, and her sketch that blew up
was such a and it was beautifulin its simplicity. She had a sketch
and it was well shot and itwas her meeting various people throughout the day.

(54:52):
I don't say it, don't sayand it is such like like a
Q statement that there's nothing in thatstatement. But and she, you know,
her brain was right to go sayit, don't don't say it.
This is no you knowest it perfect, absolutely perfect, sums it up fucking

(55:15):
perfect in every queue and every fuckingdoesn't it. But it struck so hard
that yeah, it's it's funny though, like you know, you still still
get it to this day. Andit's a bit like doing it, you
know, live, stand up Live, there's bets you go, does is
this even fucking funny? I'll doit and then it's brilliant and then there's

(55:37):
better. You're like, it isgoing to be fucking brilliant, and then
you get a few times ago that'snot getting the reaction. And it's the
same with with making it same asdoing stuff online. There's certain certain venues
you make and you go this thiscould be fucking huge, and it doesn't
go anywhere, and then once yougo, is this even funny? And
the one for me that was kindof like the biggest one I things during
the pandemic was the the zoom calls. You know, every body was doing

(56:00):
like family zooms and you know,and it became a bit of a thing.
I did it quite early, whichwas good because eventually it became you
know, you're on mute and allthat. You know, we're all done
with that. But whenever that hadjust started to become a thing and everybody
was struggling with it, I justwent up and literally stuck screen record on
the on the computer and said asmany of the things as possible to do

(56:22):
with, you know, all theshit that you go through when you're doing
them, and then I just jumpcudded them all together. It didn't make
much sense, but it was justfucking you know, they were coming all
from all angles and you're off screen. You're going, I never fucking doing
this again, you know, whatis it? You know? So I
just cut it together and stuck itand it went massive. You know,
and I ended up getting interview forlike the Irish Times and all, and
they were like dissecting the video andit was literally one of those ones where

(56:43):
I was watching it going even afterit made it. It was about the
post. It was like, Idon't even know if that's funny, you
know, and then just people toit and it went went really far,
you know. But yeah, it'swhenever, whenever that kind of thing ends,
I think everybody just went all right, we're done with COVID night,
let's fucking know, moving on.To be fair though, in all fairness,

(57:04):
if all you ever did was havelocal people watch your videos to see
him in the north is it's it'sunparalleled worldwide, worldwide. There's no place
worldwide for local lands. Fucking withthe population. What's the population? I
actually have been. I got pulledon this. I remember one night in
I said, I said the Northof Ireland. I just said the North

(57:30):
of Ireland in passing as I wasdescribing a story or where I was,
or an observation or some fucking itand some loan tomorrow, I went,
it's northern Ireland. Oh, Ithink you've told And I looked at him,
went, oh, I think you'vetold me more than you needed to
tell anybody right now, and infact, you've told the whole fucking room
everything they need to know about you. And the guy just started to string.

(57:52):
He just came out of the poorfucker's mouth. He can't help it.
It just was. It was anatural muscle muscle memory reaction. Yeah,
you know, if you want toplay your flute when I finished,
just whole you know what I mean, but telescopic flute. But yeah,
I think I think it's population uphere is I think one point two million

(58:15):
or maybe one it's between one andtwo million anyway, But yeah, in
terms of like the same goal massiveand I have a bit of a theory
about it, and I think it'sto me it's to do with COVID as
well, is that we don't likehere. We didn't used to like hearing
our accents, you know, onanything. And it came from on the

(58:35):
TV. They never had. Allthe news was always reported by English people
here, and yeah, it wasalways English accents and it was but you
know, and that was apparently Iwas. I was tweeting about it and
somebody who told me that the historyand it was because of impartiality. If
somebody from Belfast was reporting the newsand somebody else he's from you know,
he's from West Belfast. He's goingeasy on the rat the way he's reporting

(58:59):
that or Verst somebody says he's froma spell Fast and when he's reporting on
that story, he's going easy onthe loyalists. You know what they did
so for impartiality reasons. They usedto you know, parash it in the
like journalists and they would do thevery you know, English accent thing.
So we never heard our accent onTV almost ever until I think Jim McDonald

(59:22):
incarnation straight. I think that wasthe first time, you know, and
then it was just like you know, so it is on the end of
everything. So of all times,still to this day, I think the
one that made me if I readit again now, it would give me
a chest pains just of it withinternal laughing at it's the one where it
just turns to bed and this isI took good I took good ship this

(59:46):
morning. Many but she's like,so, what's the big deal about that?
I didn't get out of bitty Soso I did. Just those are
brilliant, but just because it's thestill face of Judea, Jim McDonald's face.

(01:00:06):
He always going to run the greenfucking army jacket like he's just planned
to the bomb, just planned tothe bomb. He looked so sus But
yeah, so we we we havea real thing about hearing our accent on
TV because we never had it forso long, and I think that stopped
us from being big. You know, we never really had a big,
massive comedy scene. And I thinkthat more less COVID, more sort of

(01:00:29):
just online everybody being able to produce. Eventually, I think we've started to
get more used to seeing clips andstuff and going oh, that that's fine,
and looking past the accent and beingable to just go, no,
we don't need, you know,we don't need it to be a big
touring act to come through and sellout the sec Or set, go to
the Ulcer Hull or waterfront. It'slike we're getting more and more happy and

(01:00:51):
less cringey about our own accents.I do think that's a lot to do
with it, and it's just that'swhy you're seeing a lot more people and
I get support locally, you know, And I always find that weird that
I've heard no, I've heard ofover the last few years, once from
downside when we don't have that,so yeah, you would say, like
it's again it varies county by county. It really does. Like there's hearing

(01:01:14):
Tibrair. There's nothing like I've openedthe comedy club and people brains now are
starting to go, oh, there'sa thing called comedy. You know it
was. But there's no city hereeither, and you know it's just all
towns but Cork great supporter of othercore people and it's almost it's almost northern
and Belfast and it's own like inthat there's once there's relatability in what they're

(01:01:37):
saying, you know, mentioning localismslike if I if I go to Belfast,
Like I don't feel I have tocrow bar it in, but I
do feel I have to point outthe situation of how you know, how
little I get about this? Doyou know, like the night talking about
your man in the black cab,gone, ah, what could you not
you know? Or or just pointingout how like grasp about it, but

(01:02:00):
how how cool all your police jeepsare. I love them, And that's
the zombie apocalypse. They're the coolestfucking things I've ever seen. But and
it's got you. You can immediatelysee people got switch on to me.
Then they're like, oh he's hegets us, he gets us. Where's
you go to Dublin say what youwant? Not they it may not be
gotten at all, or it'll begotten because there's such a fucking Schmorgas board

(01:02:22):
of people there. Nobody really hasnobody has any affiliation to fuck all Irish
and Dublin until you go out tothe regional parts, you know what I
mean. You go onto tell Asin the place, but there's no if
in the city center, there's noas affiliation to anything, but where's you're
in the north news. It's relatablethings too, because what I've noticed is
for from the lads going up therelike twelve ten, twelve years is the

(01:02:44):
lads like if somebody says something,they'll go, ah, thank god,
somebody is talking. We're talking abouteach other. This isn't this nice?
We never got talked about properly beforeyou know, I'm pointing out our silly
nuances and stuff like that. Soit's but now it's migrated, and I
wondered, I had a hype athesis about it. I was like,
the honesty in people's support of you. Of ye is fucking class and you

(01:03:06):
rarely like the the acknowledgment I wouldhave I would have pointed out. I
remember I knew a guy who wasplaying with Ireland at the time. It's
one of the top fucking ship hotfucking background rugby player and his neighbor beside
him. Remember I was chatting withhim in his front of yard one day.
His neighbor was like, Hu,and you fucking knew everything inside that
guy loved being he was a superfan, but couldn't give it him,

(01:03:29):
couldn't give it him, couldn't givehim fuck give it to him. And
in fairness to chat chap, Iwas chatting, he was, I went
inside, we're talking. Your manwas like, what's his fucking deal?
He goes and I said, Isaw it. He goes. To be
honest with you, if he wasa super fan and was coming over the
wall at me and was all excited, where is I don't know if I'd
be able to deal with it atall. I don't think I'd be able

(01:03:50):
to do. But what it struckme was like Ladd's I'd be in one
of the gigs above and lads tobe wearing merch from the comedians on stage
and they going, yeah, he'sour guy, He's our guy, And
there was no unashamedly and I wasgoing, that's fucking class. Like I
shipped from this fucking podcast. Peoplehave worn it in the front row and

(01:04:11):
the Empire liveries, you know whatI mean? People, And warning gun
here watch you think of that timelike fucking unbelievable. But for a moment,
I We're going, I don't knowhow to deal with the love,
Oh Jesus Christ. Also I'm going, isn't it cool that you can like?
And I wondered, I went devoidof all the troubles and all that's
gone past? Is it the generationalgenetic thing? It was like, well,

(01:04:32):
we have to support the fuck outof something we have, We gotta
support the fuck out of something,just anything. There's a whole left.
Like nobody was in any way religiouson either side. They weren't all going
to mass hard and fucking churchyard.They were just going, we support this
thing because it's our thing. Andnow the thing is gone away. It's
like, what the fuck do wesupport? This guy's telling jokes great,

(01:04:58):
And it sounds like me that thatthat could be it. I was thinking
that as you were saying, like, and you've hit the nail on the
head, I think maybe that isThere's there's a passion there of you know,
getting behind something if you know anything, and it's even like, yeah,
for to be a comedian. Youknow, football is obviously a big
thing, but it's that sort ofthing for you know, it doesn't have
to be either or you can stilland if you say a comedian, you

(01:05:21):
like, you do get people thatare just madly into that comedian or that
kind of comedy and then we'll followit. And I just, yeah,
there's there's definitely something I do feellike. And I was talking with Colin
get Us about this in the inthe green room, Dina and Roching Dove
about how I think that there's neverbeen more of a invisible border in terms

(01:05:45):
of in culture, well certainly incomedy between the North and you know,
there's very few people apart from thelikes to yourself, Demo Clark or whatever
I could probably pick and I'm lessof a connoisseur of the local comedy saying
you know, like I want tobe doing it again removing the pandem three
years and even at that I've beendoing so many of my own solo shows
that haven't really been out in theclubs as much. You know, you

(01:06:06):
probably gigged in a lot of theclubs up here more than I have.
And that's one hundred percent like thatwould be a fact, but I don't
really say. And likewise, oncefrom North going down south all the time,
there's not this sort of cooperation.I'm not saying there's anything wrong in
any of that, but it justfeels like even from audiences down south not
really following or supporting Northern comedians andvice versa. You know. Now,

(01:06:29):
I know you you see people youknow with your podcast march on or whatever.
But in terms of like a onecohesive, it doesn't feel like and
it actually phase like it's getting lessyou know, cohesive as and I don't
know what it is, can't pickmy finger on it, but it was
chatting the calling about it, thinkingthat it just fased like like I would
go down South and I would dolike I did the Make You Flan Again

(01:06:51):
support in the three Arena, didtwo nights in there and it was fucking
brilliant, Like loved it had twobrilliant you know sets, His show is
fucking phenomenal, of course, butlike literally then coming out of that,
it was genuinely like I never didit. It was like, you know,
there was no more, there wasno follow on from it of we're

(01:07:12):
gonna support this guys, like hecame, you did a good set,
but I'm not going. I'm notsaying they're going because you're from the North
where we're gonna totally fucking forget aboutyou. But there's just this feeling of
I'm not one of you, andyou're you know, this isn't my home
turf, even though it's just anhour and a half down the road,
you know what I mean. AndI think it goes both ways. There's
just something there that hasn't been youknow, hasn't been overcame yet. But

(01:07:35):
I here's the thing. I've openedthe three arena too, and I'd say
maybe afterwards got fifty new followers toten thousand people. So if you ain't
to make an act too, it'shard to measure too, if you ain't
the main actor, Like yeah,really he's really good for like twenty minutes,
but get the fuck out of ourway exactly. Yeah, Because then
that said, yeah, you arelet's just fucking call a speed of spade

(01:07:57):
because like, whenever I'm sitting,whenever I I don't I put on the
Wheelings. I to put out aWheelings gig just before doing the Mickey Flanagan
and I was like, right,you know what a couple of nearly twenty
thousand people were two nights says thathe fucking sweet and like it just sold
out like like non date after dateafter day. And I was like,
for Fox, what are you gonnado here? You know? So yeah,

(01:08:18):
it definitely feels like that and Iand now I'm consoling myself, going
there's there's an invisible border that's butit's not they have too there's nearly too
much to there's nearly too much todistract people sports wise to be huge,
especially like in the county. Imean here one biggest county nearly do you

(01:08:41):
know after Gowen Cork, I thinkit's the biggest county. And yet it's
only now people are starting. I'mhome two and a half three years,
like and I've never not been fromtemporary, but it's like, ah,
oh no, oh wait, he'sdoing a thing that's actually worth doing the
thing, and people you really haveit was. There wasn't There wasn't a
roadmap for any but like, there'szero theaters here. It isn't a theater

(01:09:02):
going that's the thing to going toactual gigs and shows and stuff. I've
never seen anything like the fucking theNorth of Ireland. And I'm saying it
like that. I don't care itleft or right of me here who gives
a fuck. But I'll never forgetopen for Delamare. It was a fucking
Coal Island or someplace right. Itwas a Wednesday, pissing the rain,

(01:09:24):
dark, one fucking street light workand I'm going, what the and I
pull in fucking gorgeous theater four hundredpeople, yeah, cold rain. Then
it was. It was not Youwouldn't drive through it and go, well,
it's definitely the fun happening here,and but four hundred people rammed in

(01:09:45):
and you're like this, no morewould fucking happen? Yeah, in like,
you wouldn't do that hard. Youmight do it in Dublin, but
it would have to be a bigfucking American name or somebody huge like Tiernan
or Daryl Breen who somebody who hasdone it big on the National Skate Stage
Company. But before you know,not I mean Delamare probably may I don't

(01:10:05):
know Delamare do that himself on aWednesday night in a small fucking irrelative like
not in the main city, doyou know what I mean? This is
a fucking regional town. That riverSide Theater is lovely. It's like I'm
in the snooker and it's like theChrysoble Theater the way it just fucking stacks
up. And like you say,you're driving through Coleraine and you're going,

(01:10:26):
what and then you drive in andit's fucking such a great spec theater and
yeah, like that sort of regionalscene is I So whenever I started doing
doing my own shoes, I wasjust doing them in Belfast and Belfast,
Belfast, Belfast, and only afterthe pandemic did I go, I'll stick
on, you know, once outsideBelfast and there's such a crowd out there,
Like I literally sell more tickets outsideof Belfast than I do inside Belfast

(01:10:50):
now. And there's theaters that arelike, you know, five hundred cap
theater in like Armagh or in NewtonAbbey, which is fifteen minute. It's
not even fifteen minutes outside Belfast,it's fifteen minutes from the center of Belfast
to Belfast and then two more minutesand you're a Newton noawby it's five hundred
and you'll sell like I do theSsea and I go, I don't want

(01:11:12):
to be putting on something so closeby because it will eat into the tickets
from there, and like my managerslike guaranteed put it, and you put
it out and you'll sell out afive hundred seater in no time and then
put on a second Like that's theidea. But that term, it's just
like going all around the North tothese places that had beautiful theaters. I
think it's it's it's it's like you'reyou're europeaying regional development, fun stuff that

(01:11:38):
you can each time gets you know, a bit of money from the I
could be completely butchering this, butI'm near one hundreds and sure there's a
lot of that goes on. AndI don't mean trouble spons as. Then
you know it's the seals of redof red diesel and you know, smuggled
faggs and talking of you know,clean money from Europe that's brought in to
kind of give these regional So youwill go to Straban and Oma and you

(01:11:58):
know these places that like you're lookingat them in terms of it's it's equivalent
down sight. But this has anamazing, like world class theater. What
we don't have that, you know. That's I had no idea that that
was how it came about because Idid a I saw some of I've seen
some of them, you know,doing stand up, but I saw nearly
all those snazzy theaters doing a play, a one man play. But it

(01:12:23):
was a big production that of sticksome money behind us, you know,
the marketing covers defending the cave Manand like that did did these theaters?
What in the fuck this? You'rerocking up? And now some of them
are definitely had the same architect hereyou're going the seas red here and they're

(01:12:43):
blue and the other one okay,exactly, Oh yeah, I know it's
one hundred percent someone going to andit is exactly like to the fucking but
their class. But yeah, thatthat is where a lot of it comes
from, is that after the GoodFriday Agreement, there was a lot of
a lot of money pumped in fromEurope. And I'm pretty sure that's what
you call it. The European reada regional development or whatever the fuck it

(01:13:06):
is, but basically lots of moneyfrom Europe and as long as you it's
basically, if you behave yourself,you can have nice things. So you
know, that's the way. Andas long as we behave ourselves and as
long as we have a government.But that's the thing is, then when
you don't have a government, youcan't you can't get this money. So
it's kind of like you want tofuck about and well you're not getting you
know, so you do have thesecrack in theaters that that that have then

(01:13:30):
like the most like you think,oh this is this is fit for you
know, like you know, thething you were doing, like big productions.
But at the same time it'll havelike you know, a Waltson band.
Then they'll push the seats back andthey'll have like, you know,
shoe bands in and all the oldpeople get up and do you know.
So it's a strange one. ButI didn't I didn't notice it until I
did my first tour maybe one yeartwo years ago, Max, and you

(01:13:54):
go, fucking hell, these thingsare amazing, world class. But they're
again, you know, I hadno like and do you know what I
tell you something, It's sold better. The play sold better up there than
it did down south. Because whatto do is see these the theaters the
time. The people in that timewill go to Now this isn't the portie

(01:14:15):
it and what you're what I'm sayinglike, they'll go to anything in that
theater. We'll go. That's allin the theater. It's going to be
good. We're going to go andsee it. So it's hard sometimes for
a comedy. And that's what Ifound in some of those theaters is that
you're literally going to be an ideaon Some of them know who you are,
and a lot of them have onlybeen here to see like plays and
things like that, so it takesa while to get them into the sort
of the comedy vibe. And there'ssome nights I've done them and I'm on

(01:14:39):
a tour and going, fucking hell, You're you think you're struggling. You're
getting laughs where you're where you wereexpecting them, but instead of the fucking
needle spiking like that, you're gettingthe wheel yeah yeah. And then what
happens is I found so I did, like my tour this one coming up
with twenty five days, the lastone was twenty eight that ended up most
of them around the North is iton the those nights I used to come

(01:15:00):
off and like fuck that. Andas soon as you walk off, the
applause lasts for so long, andyou're like, it's a disproportionate length of
applause at the end, given howyou thought went through for Fox exactly,
I bring it back. But yeah, like to the point where I would
just go no, they're sitting smilingand they're not really laughing, but they're

(01:15:21):
almost thinking. It's like a theaterthing, and there's an element of interaction
you would need in comedy, youknow, even even without crowd work,
you need them to laugh to youknow, do me that you're enjoying it,
don't sit and smile, and thenthen the applause at the end.
So it was my may Mark playsantpiano and he's like a world class pianist,
so he's more of a he's moreof an experience in theaters and stuff.

(01:15:44):
He used to elbow and like fuckinggo get back out and take a
second buy because it's it's it's it'sbad, you know, bad manners,
bad etiquette to letting an applause goon for too long without coming back out
and thanking them, you know,for keeping the applause going. I know
that one. Yeah, oh,it happens all the time, but it
only happens in those venues where you'rethinking ship and then you walk off and

(01:16:08):
so after But I'd say, maybethere's about ten of those theaters, and
by the time it got about thefifth one, I would I would have
said the mark come on, yousay, sae, if this is a
ship one, let's see how longthe applause is then and you get a
big applause, but jouring it you'rethinking, I'm fucking dying here. This
is you know, but like yousay, could you just take someone out
of a clause? And like whatwas what was that theater? You said?

(01:16:29):
You said the name of it andit was fifteen minutes from Belfast.
That one is the God the newNabby Theater at the met Newton Nabby.
So I went, I did thatone, and like to give you an
idea of like this. It wasa play, but it was stand There
was a fair but a stand up. It was monologed, but and it
was a bit it was a bitof psychedelic in some fucking ways. But
it's a it's a long running play. It's been around forever. It's running

(01:16:51):
in fucking like forty countries still atthe minute. But it's it was there
like the week previous Ian McKellen doinglike stories about himself. Oh yes,
and it's just stru this is soit's stand up for people would definitely enjoy
it. But I'm like, whatkind of But there was like, no

(01:17:12):
theater. It's sold really well andtheater people are coming to it. So
I was like, okay, sothis play went fine because you don't the
only thing about this is you do. You'd love big laughs all the time,
and I've gotten them in a goodfew places, but this place was
quite theater, all right, Andit's funny, you say. But then
I remember I was going head out. I was I was happy. I
was happy because they give that longapplause at the end and it was a
woman in the wings. I wasfucking off because I'm like, well they

(01:17:35):
kind of like that play is donenow, but this woman in the wings
work there showing you're getting back fuckingout there. There's that's it done.
There's no more. It's not becausethat's not a fucking bow animal do you
know, I went back out.But when I was walking out to me
car right, four or five fuckingout ones now that you would not be

(01:17:56):
coming to my stand up, wouldnot do you know what I mean,
like long wax on them. Youknow this art now they were, These
were leaders, and they wanted tocomplim with me. Jeez, thanks very
much. And they were well todo ladies. These ones they went,
like you said, they go toeverything I'd say, regards what the fuck
was on, they go to it. And one of them, after we're

(01:18:16):
compliment me and all the rest ofit, and I said, thanks very
much, girls, I said,Jesus, yes, this is great.
One of them went, and tobe fair, we wouldn't normally go to
you know, h somebody with thesurname like yours. She said it out
loud and I said, well,they look we're crossing board hands across the
border. I said, yes,this is christ. All it took was

(01:18:39):
me to fucking tell some jokes andmess around for two hours, which anywhere
else in the world we would geta fan that at that. But we're
so fucked. Yeah, I was. I was choffed to give me a
right pep on my step. It'slike another replause going down the fucking road,
like you know. But I waslike, whatever, old lady,
you know what I mean, Jesusout ones can be whatever they want to
be. They fucking which she was, but it was the way she said

(01:19:00):
that. She goes, yeah,you know, and cool, great,
well you can, like clearly,but you know what, they believed in
the theater more than they believed inthe show priory, you know, that
kind of way. So it's like, well, Jesus, if you can
only build this fucking culture, Likeliterally, there's a theater up the road
here where I'm bringing my new show, and this is a white whale,
like because of the civic theater andhis own government people get paid. They

(01:19:21):
just they have no impetus fucking classtheater, three hundred and forty theater theater.
They have no impetus to fucking reallypush it because like, yeah,
there's it is what it is.It's just this fucking monolith's sitting in the
center of town and people, Yeah, people have kind of forgotten there gone
is it still on? But byhook, by fucking crook, I'm pushing

(01:19:41):
this bastard, like and they eventhey were kind of gone because I've had
to change their website and everything justfor ticket sales. But they're kind of
going, uh, this is goingwell, like yeah, because I'm not
fucking letting me off the hook withthis one. Like, but I will
beat fucking culture into this scenario.If culture is me telling dick jokes for
an hour, I would beat something, you know, but it would be

(01:20:02):
like I was. I was notashamed that night when that woman said that
to me, but I was,like, there was a pang of jealousy.
I went, fucking owl. Onesare going to see me on a
Friday fucking night and they don't,and they don't give a fuck. It's
me or a fucking goat up there. They're coming to the show. I
mean, they bought a fucking ticket. You know, they didn't care what

(01:20:23):
it was. You need, I'mputting a dinosaur you need. You need
your own troubles for thirty years,if you're willing to wait for thirty years,
and then it's all just a ployto get Europe to pump loads of
money in to get you a reallygood staters, and then everybody will start
going that's the long game. Iswear to God him doing it. What
would be the two sides. Soif you if if the if the republic

(01:20:44):
had to have its own its owntroubles, what would be the two sides?
Who versus It'll be cultures versus dubsthat w'd be It's simple as to
be like its own fucking its ownPalistine or fucking is Israeli Jerusalem just built
a fuck of wall around it.Just gun. You can stay out there.
You can fucking stay out there,out Gee with your dragons out there,
Just fucking stay out there. You'renot going in fucking class class.

(01:21:06):
I love I love that story.It's fucking and I mean the SEC.
Before I let you go, theSEC, I have to ask you,
like, I mean you you,I mean the thing is like you weren't
you weren't fucking wet behind the ears? Was standing on a stage eitherer you
did. You had been doing itfor twelve or thirteen years anyway, so
it wasn't you pitch your pants stuff. But at the same time with the
SEC and you're I'm fucking doing anarena or they play sports and then it

(01:21:30):
had to day roads around You're like, I'm still doing this fucking thing.
It's mad, Like yeah, it'slike I wish, you know, you
know, like we're maybe so selfdeprecating, you know, Irish people in
general tenderby and like sometimes when Ilook back on it and I go to
myself, I've done the fucking scsix times, sold out. I should
be fucking strolling about, you know, like, and I don't let myself

(01:21:55):
and never let let it get tome, and part of me go just
fucking enjoy it for once us gofucking so I do enjoy it at the
time, but you never you neverlet your sort of your head run away
with you. So it's it isclass like it was emotional as well to
be going into somewhere where like notlong after it opened, I went and
seeing like Oasis, like the originalOasis radiohead and all in there, and

(01:22:18):
you're like going into that and youyourself and going, fuck me, I'm
actually doing this. So and itis that thing of you know, local
support, and that's people were comingright and like they were saying and whenever
you look at the crowd shots,you know, I've got a couple of
them filmed. And when you lookat the crowd shots and there's these people
with big, smiling their faces,and when you're talking and it's like it's

(01:22:39):
a pride smile. It's like likewhere we've helped him get here. And
also I was it's lovely to do, you know, but it's just,
yeah, you kind of wish we'reback and I wish it had just been
a bit more big headed about itand just you know, dined out on
it a bit more. But itis what it is. It's fucking it's
definitely career highlight and and but strangein a way, and that when you
do it, it's it's feels likeit's a weirder gig because you've obviously done

(01:23:03):
the you know, opening in thethree ring and stuff. It takes a
while for the laughter to come inlike waves. It's not just yet instantly.
There's like almost a delay and youhave to and then you have to
time it because then you have togo, well, I can't wait too
long before doing the next bit becausethe people that laugh way back there.
It just we're going, when's hegonna fucking say? And the next on
the fucking calls you don't reminder justslowed himself down. We that's what it

(01:23:29):
is good as speak do a tenminute said, but it takes twenty minutes
to do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, I yeah
yeah. That hit me like afucking a ton of brickstay and the sound
was so it was really bad forthe performer. That night, the two
it was open for the two Johnny's, and the two boys said the exact
same thing because they played every theater, you know. But when I walked
out in the first like fifteen twentyseconds, I definitely said, funny shit,

(01:23:51):
Yeah, it's worked in other places, yeah, but nothing. I
couldn't hear fucking anything like. Butthen it's started to come with waves and
I think my ear tuned into ittoo, is like fuck for that,
thank yeah, fuck but that Imean, we won't enjoy it. You'll

(01:24:11):
enjoy it in the moment, butafterwards you have to you'll be pragmatic because
it's inbuilt into you that in themorning it could all be gone, do
you know what I mean? That'sthe thing, And you're like, what
a better fucking I don't. Iin ways I envied, but then I
the Irish person in me like,I know you and you'll know too,
you know these people that are havethis inbuilt and ready to turn diva.

(01:24:34):
Do you know they're just as andas soon as they get hinto success,
you're like, how were you waitingyour whole life for this and this lunatic
that you are just de manding,do you know? And you're like how?
But I think that's theater folk too, proper proper people who've been in
theatery theatery things m from a veryvery young age and they've seen pricks at

(01:24:56):
the top being complete divas and that'swho they di you know, That's what
I've seen. So I'm for theyounger comics coming up. I'm going not
for me at all. I'm goingto be an absolute cunt as I sell
out ten years. I'm just justand it's not for me. I'm going
to absolutely love and take bows andexpect flowers to be thrown at me.
You should do the same, reallybad. It's for the betterment of the

(01:25:17):
next next crop coming up, Like, yeah, and set an example here.
I could like, yeah, Idon't know what it is, but
I just could. Also, Ithink comedy too, Like it's another thing
to be doing a stage show that'swritten and rehearsed and all the rest of
it. And but when it's comedy, you're like it's gonna change tomorrow night.

(01:25:39):
You know what I mean. It'sgood, you know, and it's
all on me, and it's nobodyelse to be thankful or at the same
time, so it's difficult to outnow give yourself a pack in the back,
Like, isn't it going? I'mclass? Did we tell you to?
We told me I'm class, I'mclass, I'm class you just because
it's funny that that, like youknow what you say about you should be

(01:26:00):
able to give yourself a pat inthe back and relax. But I think
that is actually maybe what it isis that the only reason I'm very aware
that the only reason my audience,any audience that laughs and then supports me
and keeps watching my stuff and thenbuys tickets to go to my shows,
the only reason they do that isbecause they can relate to me. And
if I change, and if Istart becoming somebody different because I'm letting go

(01:26:23):
to my head, you'll find thatthe things that you then find funny,
that you think they all find funny, they won't find funny anymore. And
like fucking disappeared up it was allnurse and all of a sudden, the
fucking should do it sometimes caviar comesout the wrong, like ah, yeah,
no not what don't you hate itwhen the when the red wine comes

(01:26:43):
out and it's being chilled in ain a you know, fine dining restaurant
or you know, they're fuck off, which is why then I would just
give all the posh stuff to theposh character and then but you can't fake
that. That's the thing, isthe genuine like sort of if you want
to build like, you know,a fan base and like connect with your
audience or whatever, you just haveto be just stay true to yourself if
that's what's got you there, Ifyou were writing a character and behave in

(01:27:06):
a certain way, and you haveto continue that as well. But that's
not that wasn't what I was doing. When is the new tour kicking off?
So it will kick off in Apriltwenty twenty four, and I think
it's twenty twenty five dates. We'veadded extras on for certain places, but
there's a little of them up northare selling out and I think the further

(01:27:26):
away you go, the fewer ticketsare being sold. So yeah, I'll
be in Dublin on one. Idon't know, I sure exactly what date
but it's all Sugar Double Sugar Clubin Dublin. Yeah, that's a yeah.
It's a class spot. It's theclass. But as a punter,
it's a class spot because it's socomfortable, the most comfortable fucking seats to
sit in. Because I haven't neverbeen. I'm going to start getting some

(01:27:47):
spots done. I must pick yourbrains about that. Gett yeah, yeah,
problem and Worre's good to go.And then I'll probably take the head
stargers go fuck it, bit methe fairy in a look supported mickey,
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you know what, I'll take
a stadium sometime somewhere down the corkas well. Fuck it, let's do
it. What does Springsteen do isget a book just follow Springsteen's fucking yeah

(01:28:12):
yeah exactly. Why would the work, Paddy, This has been fucking class
man. Thanks sobody for coming on. Cheers for having me, brilliant Cheers Patty

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