TheCity

Tag: comedian

  • You’re having a laugh!  

    You’re having a laugh!  

    TheCity caught up with up-and-coming comedian Darren Gaffney to chat about his first solo gig, the high and lows of live performance, and why getting barred from a place isn’t always permanent. 

    By Rebecca Reilly 

    Originally from the small village of Kilnaleck in County Cavan, which, according to Darren, had the record for most pubs per capita in Ireland, his upbringing was typical of rural Ireland. His mum is a nurse and dad a plumber, Darren was influenced heavily by the two f’s of country living – farming and football. “My uncle had a farm, so I spent a lot of time with him, playing football and going to mass – all that crack,” he laughs. A childhood that would be familiar to many rural inhabitants of Ireland, Darren maintains, is why his comedy hits. “People get it!”  

    Having been bitten by the performance bug early in life, Darren performed at Scór and Réadóirí competitions, both of which focused heavily on Irish culture. Participants would showcase the likes of Irish dancing, poetry, and music. “I remember there was a segment called recitations. I dressed up as a farmer and recited a funny poem. I always loved being on stage.” 

    Darren Gaffney. Photo credit:  Sinéad Murphy and Zoe Sanford 

    One would be forgiven for thinking Darren might have dived right into performing arts, but a more serious route came calling. “I did politics, economics and law in college. I thought it might become a TD for the craic!” But after a year’s Erasmus in Poland, Darren decided to bite the bullet and try to crack comedy on his return home. “I never thought about being a comedian. But I had a lot of friends who kept telling me I should do it. When I came back to Ireland, I signed up for an open mic on the Ha’penny Bridge.”  

    It was a daunting experience. “You don’t have a clue when you start, so I didn’t tell anyone. I kept it a secret and just drove up to Dublin,” he recalls. “The first gig went well, but I think on the second gig, I got drunk, and I was so nervous. And it went awful! I don’t drink at all now before going on stage.”  

    In 2020, COVID hit and like so many, Darren had to put his career on pause. It didn’t deter him; he was adamant he was going to succeed, a slog that was going to be much harder than he was prepared for. “You must have thick skin. Nobody cares about you at the start; you must fight for everything. If I knew how much work it was going to be, I don’t know if I would have done it!”  

    Darren Gaffney. Photo credit: Sinéad Murphy and Zoe Sanford. 

    A tenacious attitude led Darren to forge his own path, not to be dependent on others for his success. “That’s why I started a comedy club, Bite the Bullet, in the Cat and Cage in Drumcondra. Trying to book gigs at the start – you’re just another comedian; there are loads of them. Not everyone wants to help; you’re on your own, really. You get a bit of respect if you have some get-up-and-go.” Bite the Bullet comedy also runs in the Chelsea Drugstore in Dublin city centre, The Tap House in Ranelagh and an ad hoc show in the Imperial in Cavan – where, ironically, Darren was once barred from. 

    With his first solo gig in Dublin just around the corner (two sold-out nights in Little Whelans on the 12th and 13th of April and a third night added on the 14th), Darren says his comedy sets are very reflective of his genuine self. “I try to really like myself on stage. In real life, I’m always messing around. It’s high energy and unpredictable as hell,” he laughs. With a big emphasis on Irish life and growing up in rural Ireland, the 28-year-old draws his inspiration from observing life and interacting with the audience. “A lot of comedians look down on that audience interaction, but it was something I was good at from the outset.”   

    Observational and genuine comedy is something that has granted Darren success on TikTok, social media almost being a prerequisite for comedy now. Living a dual life online and on stage can come with its difficulties. “Stuff that works on TikTok might not work on stage and vice versa,” he said. “The stuff that comes out of nowhere is usually better. I was trying to think of content before a gig the last day, and I just came up with a video about how nobody puts children in the back of vans or cars anymore – and it blew up! I took it in one take. Other content I take a long time thinking of, maybe comes across a bit forced? It’s weird.”   

    Darren Gaffney. Photo credit: Sinéad Murphy and Zoe Sanford. 

    As the old saying goes, what goes up must come down, and being on stage has become something of an addiction to Darren.  “It’s such a rollercoaster of emotion; you come from the highs of your life to crushing lows,” he reveals. “You get home after being mental on stage for an hour – you can’t sleep. I was chatting to a comedian who was doing a small gig in London once, and he went walking around London and ran into Ricky Gervais, who was on his way to Wembley on a post-gig walk as well.”   

    “One time after a good gig in Mullingar, I was driving home, and the guards started following me. They stopped me and asked me if I was on drugs. I drove the whole way out of the road with no lights on! Since that moment, I’ll always chill for half an hour after a gig.”   

    Darren is hoping to do a tour of Ireland, and all going well, across the water in the UK. Like his comedy hero, Tommy Tiernan, Vicar Street or the Olympia is the primary objective. “Selling out either of those would be class. Although if I did that, I’d probably be thinking of the next thing. That happens to me a lot. But if I sold out either of those, that would be the dream.” 

  • Will the real comic please stand-up?

    Will the real comic please stand-up?

    We Irish are usually typecast as a rowdy, drunken bunch with good anecdotes and generally fun to be around. Not the worst stereotype out there, not by a long shot! Would you rather be identified as loud-mouthed, fat and stupid or unhygienic with terrible teeth?

    But we tend to be a good-humoured group and are praised for our ability to take a joke on the chin. With recent outbursts in the media and considerable public backlash, notably by infamous comic Ricky Gervais, is there a line that should not be crossed when it comes to stand-up comedy?

    Irish comedian Al Porter talks to The City to give his opinion on the nature of the art.

    “As a comedian, it’s our jobs to address the things going on in peoples’ minds that maybe they don’t want to say. If you even go back to Shakespearean or Medieval times, you have the court jester. He was the only one permitted to slag the king. He was the only one allowed to rock the boat and talk about the establishment.”

    Al recalls a night in the Laughter Lounge where the issue of people taking offence on behalf of others arose at a comedy gig. Do people have a right to take offence on behalf of others, even if the butt of the joke may not necessarily concern them?

    Al Porter performing at the RTE New Comedy Awards
    Al Porter performing at the RTE New Comedy Awards

    MC on the night Steve Cummins usually pokes fun at the audience, luring them into a sense of comfort at the beginning of the shows. On this particular night he had 40 people in wheelchairs in the audience.

    “He usually tells people the emergency rules and that night said: ‘in case of a fire you’re f*cked’, looking over at the 40 people in the wheelchairs,” said Al.

    However, they all found it hilarious but eight people rang in to Joe Duffy the next day to complain about how rude Steve had been. Following this, members of the group in the wheelchairs rang in jumping to the comic’s defence, explaining that they recognised it was a joke and found it quite funny.

    “In Ireland, and anywhere in the Western world, I think freedom of speech comes with the right to be offended but also the right to offend. If you have the right to be offended then I have the right to offend you. I mean I have the right to say things in the name of entertainment.”

    Although there are very sensitive issues in regard to race, religion, culture and sexuality, many comics have successfully incorporated these topics into their routine – Chris Rock on race, Louis C.K. on homosexuality etc. Are there issues comedians should avoid joking about and how does one know where to draw the line?

    “The problem is that you can’t mark something out as taboo – as something not to be talked about, because that is the reason that comedy exists. It’s there for these things to be talked about.”

    “A sensitive issue for an audience is one where you are going to upset people inadvertently, and that’s not doing your job. And that’s things like people who can’t defend themselves, people who have issues that they can’t change about themselves. You can’t change the fact that you are disabled; you can’t change the fact that you have a mental disability; you can’t change the fact that you’re blind.”

    “I do religious material and one of the elephants in the room in Ireland is child sex abuse. Now that’s very hard to make fun of. How do you make fun of child sex abuse? It’s a very difficult thing to do comedy on.” said Al.

    Al is a regular feature on the Irish comedy circuit, performing here at the Laughter Lounge
    Al is a regular feature on the Irish comedy circuit, performing here at the Laughter Lounge

    Although child sex abuse is the overriding sensitive topic in Irish culture, we have seen the likes of Tommy Tiernan achieve success in his comedy on the subject, taking a light-hearted approach on the matter.

    “My way of doing it is to take a light-handed approach. For example, ‘I was an altar server until I was seventeen but I was only in it for the action’. And people tend to laugh at that. And then I say, ‘if you think the Jews were cruel to Jesus you should have seen how Father Billy nailed me’ and it gets a good reaction,” said Al.

    “If we’re going to say that everything is okay for you to talk about, then the only lines we can draw are moral, ethical or boundaries of taste and decency. The problem there is that everybody differs. If you really want to be a top comedian, you should have enough audience entity to know your audience’s moral compass.”

    “For example I don’t do those religious jokes down the heart of the country. If I’m in a bar in Sligo or a small village in Tipperary, and that’s because I understand that these audiences don’t particularly want to hear this. I’m here to entertain. I’ll do those jokes up in Dublin where people are more accepting.”

    It is obvious that audience entity and knowing your particular audience’s moral compass at any given show is vital for a comedian’s outlook. Pushing the boundaries in comedy comes with great success if done correctly, but it is such a difficult skill to master and one has to accept that they are not going to please everyone. Someone will usually always be offended where sensitive topics are joked about.

    “I watched a video of David Walliams recently which made me uncomfortable. He brought a man from the audience up on stage, The man didn’t know what he was volunteering for and he pushed him to the ground, pulled down his trousers and dry-humped him on stage. I think that’s gone too far.”

    “The line can be drawn there because it’s not immoral to talk about dry-humping somebody with their trousers down, but he has breached an ethical code, where his audience was not given a yes or no choice here. If that was a verbal joke, the man hears it, but he can hear it, get offended, leave and never buy a ticket to see David Walliams again. The fact that this guy didn’t have the choice to leave and that his own personal space was invaded was wrong.”

    “I do stuff that I flirt with men in the audience and they might be rubbed on the shoulder or the leg, but believe me, I am looking at his face and for his reaction. I know when to move away and who to leave alone.”

    “That is when it becomes immoral – when somebody else’s freedom is being breached. Nobody is breaching your freedom by censoring you. You’re allowed say what you want and nobody is breaching the audience’s freedom by making them stay there and suffer because they can leave whenever they want.”

    “If people are going to allow you the freedom to do what you want, you should allow them the freedom to consent as to whether they want it done or not.”

    Al Porter has hosted a set of successful comedy shows in Dublin’s Woolshed Baa & Grill, the last of which takes place on December 16th in a Christmas comedy special.