Tag Archives: Tommy Tiernan

Fight!

Dale Pankhurst?

Tommy Tiernan

Tommy Tells His Dream

(after Martin Luther King and T. Tiernan)

But, I say to you tonight, my fellow silver chins of every imaginable orientation, let us not dribble too long down the gully of despond.

Though we now face the catastrophes of others with equanimity, I once had a dream. A dream whose roots stood frailly, but proudly, in the droplets of Royal County cow dung sent by God the Mother, Auntie & Uncle as a sign to confirm how impressed the average orthodontist in the greater Navan area is with how far I as a country have come.

When I was growing up you weren’t allowed to be cross-eyed. Now I can look at you whatever way I want, and I’m a country at ease with having as its temporary head god a homosexual of Indian extraction who secretly thinks all the screaming injustices in this amazing country I have become could be sorted by allowing a free market in the fingernails of the indigent so we can develop an environmentally friendly alternative to ivory.

I had a dream, dear investors in this frantic little country I have become, that one day homeless thirteen year olds would sit trying to understand the practical application of Pythagoras’s Theorem and who was who in the War of The Roses while younger siblings shrieked their times tables on temporary mattresses whose stains have paid for themselves many times over.

I had a dream that one day, in the amazing country I always planned to grow up to be, little black boys and girls would spend years at the breakfast table with a peculiar bloke from Azerbaijan and in the process fatten the owner of the draughtiest hotel in town before eventually being allowed to pass go.

I had a dream that one day Californian Turkey Vultures, with offices in the Virgin Islands, would be invited in by the Department of Finance to usefully pick clean unnecessary flesh from the skeletons of rough sleepers and be able to claim tax relief for the upkeep of their beaks.

I had a dream that one day every pit would open its jaws wider, and quietly clear its throat before swallowing many of you, that every mountain would be made more exalted and that on each peak, from Mount Errigal to the McGillycuddy Reeks, there’d sit a guy like me telling Ryan Tubridy how he (or she) once had a dream.

Kevin Higgins

Context

Pic RTÉ

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“One of the great things about the old Late Late Show was not knowing who the guests were until they appeared on screen, it kept the whole thing lively, so I just thought well how would it be if the host didn’t know who they were until they walked out either. Every time I thought about it, it just made me laugh so…………let’s see ! Doing it front of a live audience is the key for me, it all seems like good unpredictable fun.”

Tommy Tiernan (above)

The Tommy Tiernan Show a new ‘mystery guest’ chat show on RTÉ 2fm, starting this Saturday [and every Saturday in July] at 1pm broadcast LIVE from The Sugar Club on Leeson Street, Dublin 2. Tickets are free but limited and “booking is essential” (tommy@rte.ie).

Pic: Tony Kinlan

Sunglasses

Some Twitter reaction to the documentary Tommy: To Tell You The Truth on RTE 1 last night.

How was it for you?

Inspiring free form comedy jazz?

Or Krusty the Clown?

Only you can DECIDE.

Previously: Tiger Of Sweden

TomAndPhil-300x297

Tommy Tiernan and Philip O’Connor

Tommy Tiernan’s improvised show in Stockholm, Sweden in March  will be a small part of Tommy: To Tell You The Truth a documentary showing on RTE1 at 9.35 tonight.

Sweden-based journalist Philip O’Connor was in the audience.

He writes:

Surely he wasn’t going to improvise the whole show?

He was.

And he did.

In parts it was gut-achingly hilarious, in others cringeworthy. His few hours in the city had given him enough to hit the easy targets early and often – how well-run the country seemed, how beautiful everyone was, and how the Irish stood out in comparison.
The crowd tried to go with him but those with bellies full of beer and a distinct lack of understanding of the live setting interrupted the flow repeatedly with heckles, particularly when Tiernan tried to take the tempo down before quickening again.
It was like the lions realizing that the ringmaster’s whip and chair were no match for their teeth, but this particular ringmaster had a few more potent barbs in his arsenal.
Tommy ploughed manfully on – 18 years of dealing with audience members who all think they are funnier than you gives you certain coping mechanisms, even without the safety net of a script – never once seeking the comfort of familiar material.

It was a masterful, powerful, almost sickeningly brave performance, both physically and verbally.
This was a performer dragging us to the very limits, forcing us to stare into the abyss and then pulling us back and changing course. Only a few were lost over the side.
Finally, he took the enthusiastic standing ovation of the crowd; some applauded the jokes made up on the spot, while others applauded his courage and resilience.
Some clapped in relief that it was over, while others knew that they had seen something very, very special, even if they couldn’t put their finger on what it was….”

Fair play, in fairness.

More here: When Tommy Walked The Tightrope In Stockholm (Philip O’Connor, Our Man InStockholm)

Funnyman Tommy Tiernan[Tommy Tiernan]

Quite literally gagging for it.

Tommy Tiernan spoke to John Murray on RTÉ Radio One this morning during which the following exchange occurred…

John Murray: “Because you travel around the country and you take in what’s happening, are we a little but more at ease with ourselves, have we got over that patch where we thought, you know, everything…”

Tommy Tiernan: “No, I think there’s something. I sense, generally speaking, that we are, we’re still soft, vulnerable, mad, depressed, wild, hopeless, miserable, lovely people. And there’s something about us though that is subservient. I think we do have, and [writer] Pat McCabe reminded me of this great phrase: ‘We have backs that are aching for the lash’. And I think that we put up with the things that, we’re so genetically, historically, we’re so used to putting up with bad management and mistreatment that we kinda, there’s something in us that thinks we deserve it. And the way the banks are treating people now. Your man, what’s the Bank of Ireland lad, Richie..”

Murray: “Richie Boucher?”

Tiernan: “Yeah, Dick the Butcher. The banks, you know. We see drawings and we hear stories about three of four hundred years ago, two hundred years ago, people being ousted out of houses by landlords and having to pay exorbitant rents and we ran from the English into the arms of the church and we ran from the church into the arms of the banks. And the banks are the new landlords now. The system is exactly the same – we’re paying exorbitant amounts of money to stay in our own houses. And I think people like Dick the Butcher,if we were, if we had more, if we weren’t so bent over, do you know? If we were a bit more, a bit more…maybe it just takes a generation, maybe it takes three or four generations for people to learn how to stand upright and to feel entitled to stand upright.”

Murray: “So we’re cowed by it all?”

Tiernan: “I think we’re a little bit defeated, you know, and I think. A friend of mine, Gerry Mallon, a comedian from Galway, had this great line that we just don’t have the weather for revolutions.”

Mmmf.

Listen back in full here

Michael Chester/Photocall Ireland