Seeing Tommy Tiernan at rest in the cushioned silence of the residents’ lounge at a Dublin hotel is just unnatural. Tommy seems almost trapped by the static nature of proceedings. He is a ball of kinetic energy somehow bolted temporarily into the overstuffed couch. It’s like meeting the sun in a buttoned-up suit.
Tommy’s on a break from performing. If the slightly haunted look is anything to go by, the sooner he ends this and gets back on stage, the better for the health of all.
That stage will not be in Ireland. Tiernan has packed up not just his last monster tour, Loose, into its neat and characteristically idiosyncratic DVD package, but also the whole ‘Tommy Tiernan In Ireland’ phenomenon.
At least for the next year and half or so, he will eschew what would undoubtedly be hundreds of thousands of willing worshippers at the Tiernan altar of roaring good comedy performance. Instead, he will seek a new challenge – in the United States Of America.
For Tommy this is a logical departure and the time is ripe to make it. He draws an analogy with an earlier era when London was the destination of no choice for the ambitious Irish comic crop, in the early to mid ‘90s.
“London was the place then. Sean (Hughes), Dylan (Moran) and Ardal (O’Hanlon) were all over there. It was the thing to do. I’m at the same stage again now in terms of America.”
It’s a case of going backwards to go forwards for Tiernan. He likens his imminent forays into the New York comedy club scene to a return to basics at clubs, like those in The International Bar in Dublin.
“Every New York gig is The International. You’re suddenly just someone who speaks too fast to be understood. You’re Dara O’Briain.”
Apparently, Tommy is willing to accept the challenge of reinventing himself in a new territory rather than risk atrophying in the upper stratosphere of Irish comedy.
He talks about the law of diminishing returns as it applies to someone as successful as himself in terms of live comedy performance here.
“The more famous you are, the less you have to do [in a live show] for people to convince themselves they’ve enjoyed it. But your work is deteriorating.”
He sees one way of avoiding this unacceptable eventuality: “You have to go to a more difficult environment”.
Tommy’s not just imagining things either. He knows what he’s talking about, having already done a weekend in New York comedy clubs.
“You’re one of 14 acts on for 10 minutes each. There are 14 people in the room,” he says. “The audience is eating and drinking and they’re not facing the stage. It’s challenging to go to that from Vicar Street. There’s a wonderful atmosphere in Vicar Street. Vicar Street has an energy all its own. Then in New York you jump on going ‘Hey – The Church!’ and there’s the noise of plates.”
Tommy’s plans for 2006 kick off with, for starters, that whistle stop tour of the plate noises of the US. Thereafter, he will move to the main course, a theatre run in LA.
For these endeavours, he has partnered up with Arnold Engleman of Westbeth Entertainment. Westbeth successfully engineered the launch of Eddie Izzard in the US. Now, it is masterminding a veritable invasion from this side of the Atlantic by touring Tommy, Dylan Moran, The League of Gentlemen, Dave Gorman and Bill Bailey.
Trying to break the States may be risky but Tommy has already done considerable ground work in North America. This year he was asked to the Aspen Comedy Festival, the major shop widow for the American comedy industry.
That put Tommy in exalted company. Those who have performed at the event include the late Bill Hicks, Eddie Izzard and Billy Connolly.
In addition to giving him the chance to play to sold out audiences, Aspen brought Tiernan to the notice of the heavy hitters of US television: Letterman, Conan O’Brien, HBO and Comedy Central.
Tommy gives the impression that his main motivation for a concentrated assault on the US is not an opportunistic effort to build on his success over here.
Rather, he sees it as answering a fundamentally creative imperative to move on and develop.
Having toured Ireland for years, he just doesn’t want to repeat himself. “If you only gig in Ireland, it would become harder and harder to do new shows. It's like trying to make two dinners out of the same ingredients.”
So, if you want feast on Tiernan’s fare in a sit-down eatery of the comedy soul you’re out of luck in Ireland for a while. You have options, though. Tommy has thoughtfully provided you with a takeaway version in his new DVD, Loose, a collection of documentary footage from his last tour of Ireland.
The result is far more interesting than the standard multi-camera edit from a single show in a single venue.
The DVD takes you on a journey cutting frequently and unpredictably between footage from many different shows in different places.
This has the effect of keeping you alert and on your toes. A routine starts off in the wide open spaces of the Vicar Street stage, then switches, mid-flow, to a louder more intimate evening in Galway or to a continuation of the same spiel shot from a rakish and disconcerting angle in Cork.
Finally, the interview is over. Tommy doesn’t stop it, but I just reach the point where I can’t sit next to his fulminating warp-core of pent up energy any more. It’s farewell and God speed as he prepares to unshackle himself and bear down on the American stage.
They don’t know what’s about to hit them over there. And already Tommy has a glint in his eye, wondering what kind of show will emerge from the adventure and how it will be received when he does come back. “That is, if there’s anyone still here when I get back”.
Pic: Graham Keogh