11 O'Clock Tick tock

DYLAN MORAN played his first London gig in aeons last week, so a couple of friends and I ambled along for a few scoops and a bit of a giggle. Madame JoJo's of Soho was the venue, the ambience of which the dishevelled comedian captured in a nutshell when he sauntered on stage and observed that it was the kind of place you could easily find yourself outside at 2:30am, pretending to be gay so that the bouncer will let you in. As usual, he was spot on.
The club is one of those fantastically sleazy cabaret joints where everything is red and covered in crushed velvet, from the aforementioned gate-keeper to the curtains hanging behind the stage. Fancy ladies in sexy cocktail dresses wander around carrying crushed velvet trays of drinks, while the crushed velvet vocals of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Liza Minelli ooze from the PA before and after the show. Lounge lizard heaven; the kind of place Dylan Moran was born to play.
The star turn arrived in the company of Graham Linehan, with whom he is currently collaborating on a sitcom, and seemed surprised to see me. When I explained why I'd come, he seemed genuinely perplexed: "Why? Why would you want to see me? You're going to be disappointed because I haven't got any new gear." Material, I hasten to add, as opposed to heroin. After all, as he says himself: "If I feel the need for a rush I just get out of a chair when I least expect it."
Despite his protestations, the lion's share of his 20-minute set was new to me. The highlight? A particularly heartfelt diatribe about the absurdity of exercising. When I congratulated him on his brief appearance in Notting Hill, he responded with his usual enthusiasm and joie de vivre: "Yes, appearing in that film was the highlight of my life to date," he muttered drily, as if performing opposite Julia Roberts in a box office blockbuster was the kind of hassle he could do without. Coming from anyone else, such sarcasm would sound hollow and trite, but where Dylan's concerned, you can't help but feel that performing opposite Julia Roberts in a box office blockbuster really is the kind of hassle he could do without. He always manages to convey the impression that, given the choice, he'd much rather be at home smoking fags and staring at a door. A gas man, the world would be a duller place without him.
Elsewhere, fans of The Eleven O'Clock Show may have noticed that the popular thrice weekly satirical news digest has become increasingly funny in recent weeks. Although I have sung its praises in these pages before, it is only lately that I have realised that it is unquestionably the funniest television programme ever made. The presenters, Daisy Donovan and Iain Lee, along with self-styled celebrity filleter, Ali G, are competence itself, no expense is spared in the production department and the quality of script-writing on the show is, quite simply, peerless. Without fail, every gag broadcast is a zinger which invariably reduces the audience to hysterics, their laughter serving as the turbo charge which will inevitably rocket the show to the top of the ratings.
Of course, the fact that I recently started writing gags for said televisual comedy extravaganza is purely coincidental. Or is it? Despite my own fondness for the weed, unlike Dylan Moran, I have never suffered from reduced lung capacity when it comes to blowing lengthy solos on my own trumpet. I am truly great. In fact, I would publish my telephone number so that you could all ring me up to tell me just how great I am, but then people would start stalking me, students would want to interview me for their dissertations and my life would become a living hell.
Writing funnies for The Eleven O'Clock Show is great for a number of reasons, the main one being that you get to lounge around all day, drinking tea, reading newspapers, observing the shortcomings of people who are better at everything than you are and then cracking jokes at their expense. As this is what I seem to do all day every day anyway, getting paid for it has to be considered a bonus. Better still, the advent of modern technology means that you get to do all this without ever having to leave your house.
The benefits of this particular perk cannot be over-stated, as my limited experience has shown me that the worst thing about working in television is having to spend time with other people who work in television. If you don't believe me, take a walk through RTE some day and count the number of clipboard-wielding tossers who plaster on a fake grin and greet you insincerely, on the off chance that you might be somebody important.
The drawbacks? Well, I have to get up at the crack of dawn three mornings a week, I don't get to hang with Ali G and it's unlikely that I'll ever get to put anything other than words in Daisy Donovan's mouth.
Oh for God's sake behave! I'm talking about my fantasy where she's lying in a hammock telling me how great I am while I feed her grapes . . . n