BLOG
Father Bhoy - June 21, 2008
Hello Everybody,
I am back in London after a week long mini tour of Ireland where I played some delightful little venues up and down the country. Ireland is the ultimate ‘wind down’ country. There really does seem to be nothing there that requires immediate attention. I was asked by the front of house manager in Sligo if I had a policy on latecomers? I said I didn’t mind if people drifted in after the start of the show. “Thank god!” she said “otherwise the show would be completely empty!” I was travelling round with top Australian comic Adam Hills, who had a week of holiday planned after Kilkenny, but like all comics started to itchy feet…well, foot. We started in Ballybofey up in the North of Ireland, and then did shows in Roscommon, Carrick On Shannon, Galway, Sligo and Cork. I was, of course, concentrating hard on my forthcoming Edinburgh show..so much so, that I nearly missed an easy 3 foot putt on the 15th at Strandhill. It was a brilliant week. One of the highlights for me was the gig in Roscommon where I conducted a mock Communion with some audience members including a prominent local Member of Parliament. Allow me to explain...
Adam had apparently promised to buy the whole audience pizza in the first half (I prefer to let my comedy alone win them over.) Anyway, at the end of the show I dutifully asked the audience if they had any questions? The rather blunt reply came in the form of another question “Where’s me fuckin’ pizza?” Ahhhh, that lilting Irish brogue, you just can’t…ignore it. I had no idea what the fella’ was talking about having been busy playing Tiger Woods golf on the PSP backstage while Adam was weaving his comedy tapestry in the first half, so I looked at little perplexed as this line of questioning sparked real discontentment.
Adam walked back on stage and explained what he had promised the audience, and that he had completely forgotten to put the order in. ‘That’s all very well Adam’, I thought to myself, but we are now faced with a hungry, and pretty angry Irish crowd, and as history has told us, this is absolutely the worst kind of Irish people to confront. Adam then dashed back stage to see if he could still order the pizzas, while I was left floundering around on stage. Eventually he returned with the news that the pizza delivery place was closed, and so instead he had bought 30 packets of Pringles from the local shop. That’s right, Adam Hills decided to mock the good people of Ireland not only by not delivering the food he promised, but by trying to buy them off with a few flavoured…POTATOES! And to think, all night I had skilfully managed to skip around doing one of my most famous catchphrases?
Ok, so how else can we offend these people, you may be asking yourself? Well, how about feeding an audience member on stage, by getting them to kneel down in front of me and accept the crisp in the mouth after a dodgy blessing from Father Bhoy. This really could have ended up in the headline “Comedians Burned Alive As Locals Fail To See The Funny Side” (which incidentally is an actual headline from the Baghdad Post), but fortunately the chosen audience member was a seemingly unpopular local MP, and the audience seemed far more accepting of open blasphemy when it was at the expense of ridiculing a politician. The whole thing was recorded and I’m rather concerned it may end up on YouTube.
Anyway, I am back in London now, where I will be for the next few weeks in the lead up to the Edinburgh fringe. I must be one of the few comedians in the world who in the month of August actually gets to spend some time at home. I guess I should take this opportunity to give the new show a plug. I am told after a box office catastrophe, that tickets are now finally on sale, so if you are in Edinburgh and want to see the fruits of my labour, then I will be appearing at the EICC from the 8-19 of August.
All the best,
Danny
