Comedy goes to college

For some inexplicable reason the Irish third level sector has never been what you’d describe as a hotbed of comedy talent.

Perhaps it’s down to what is seen as the innate conservatism of the Irish student population – or the fact that they have to work harder to get through college than their international counterparts. Who knows? But few would argue that students these days aren’t a serious bunch with more of an eye towards gaining top grades and plum jobs than having a laugh. This is in stark contrast with the situation across the water, where for example Cambridge University’s legendary Footlights group has produced some of the biggest names in British comedy since it first came to prominence in the 1960’s. This fertile comedy and satire group has spawned a long list of comedy greats including Peter Cook, John Cleese, Stephen Fry, Clive James, Hugh Laurie, Griff Rhys Jones and more recently Sacha Baron Cohen (Ali G).
Nothing similar has ever existed in this country although there have been some examples of future comedy talent getting together while students – the late Dermot Morgan for example, and Ireland’s first comedy impressario Billy McGrath, emerged from a UCD scene of sorts in the early ’70s. Probably the nearest thing we’ve had to a genuine comedy scene emerging from a college campus was back in the 1980s when home-grown comedy greats of the calibre of Ardal O’Hanlon, Barry Murphy, Dermot Carmody and Anne Gildea attended the same course at Dublin City University (then known as NIHE).
According to Anne Gildea however, it was more down to the kind of people the course attracted than to a particular scene within the college itself. “For some strange reason we all did the Communications Course together,” she says. “I was in the same class as Ardal O’Hanlon and Barry Murphy. It was quite a hard course to get into at the time and it was seen as creative and probably attracted people who were high achievers. But they were directionless high achievers. The course was an absolute mess with no focus whatsoever and we didn’t have any career aspirations. You have to remember that this was the late 1980s and Ireland has changed profoundly since then. These days young people have a sense that education leads to something, but back then we didn’t know what it was leading to and some of us drifted into comedy.”
According to Dermot Carmody, the comedy element only came to the fore after the aforementioned future comedy names had left the college. “It would be misleading to say there was an actual comedy scene in NIHE back then,” he says. “You had four people doing the same course and there is no doubt that the seeds of something were sown. I remember Ardal being a great debater and they had this spoof group called “Graham”. But it was after most people had finished the course that the Mr Trellis group was formed in the International Bar and it grew from there, rather than from the college itself.”
Despite the lack of comedy greatness emerging from within Irish colleges there is no doubt that there a vibrant live comedy scene on campuses throughout the country. In fact most third level institutions are now putting on comedy acts on a regular basis. According to Kevin Delaney, Ents officer at DCU, comedy remains popular among students. “I would say that comedy is probably growing in popularity,” he says. “I know that we will be having comedy acts in here regularly basis over the coming year we’ve already booked some for Freshers’ week.”
It’s pretty much the same story around the country. According to Mick Doyle at Carlow IT comedy is one of the most popular forms of campus entertainment. “They’ve done it here for as long as I can remember and the students here love it,” he says. Alma Keane at University College Galway says that comedy is now among the mainstays of student entertainment. “It wasn’t a big thing over the last couple of years until the last Freshers Week,” she says. “Since then we’ve had people like Kevin McAleer, Des Bishop and Eddie Bannon performing at the college. And we’re hoping to have Tommy Tiernan in here soon.”
For the comedians themselves however, performing before a student audience can be a tough call. Stand-up comedian and writer John Henderson has mixed feelings about performing at colleges. ”College audiences cover the full spectrum,” he says. “Sometimes they can be brilliant or sometimes it can be the worst gig of your life. It all depends on whether you’re on before or after the mud wresling.
“You kind of think that as students they should be educated and clever but it doesn’t always work that way. You could be out there doing your very best observational material and you’d get no reaction whatsoever. Then you slag the bloke with the long hair sitting at the front and they’d carry you shoulder high out of the room.”
Despite this, Henderson says some of the more organised events can work out better. “I have had some marvellous student gigs. There used to be a lot of sponsored tours like the Carrolls Comedy tours but the ones you have to watch out for are when you get a call from some guy in the Ents office and you end up in a noisy canteen during Freshers’ week or rag week.”
Dermot Carmody agrees with Henderson. “Quite often those gigs are very badly organised – not always but sometimes. The most recent one I did was at Dun Laoghaire Art College. There was a very small crowd but they were appreciative. But the organisers were out in the street trying to attract more people in with a free keg of beer. It was all going well up until then, but I ended up competing with the free beer which was ridiculous. The older you get the less appropriate it is for someone like me to perform for a student audience. They just don’t have the same life experiences as I have.”