MC Or Not MC?

They may not have worn white gloves and red suits or walked in a straight line outside Buckingham Palace like they had a poker stuck up their arse but nonetheless they enacted the changing of the guard all the same. The old guard, Brendan Dempsey, handed the responsibilty for running the International Bar's famed Comedy Cellar to Paddy Courtney on the very day this interview took place.
It's fitting, then, that Hoot Press should meet the both of them in the bar which has acted as a maternity hospital for each new generation of Irish comedians since its own birth in 1988, when the Mr. Trellis comedy troupe - Ardal O'Hanlon, Barry Murphy and Kevin Gildea - set up shop above the Wicklow Street pub. It being upstairs, they naturally called it the Comedy Cellar.
Everything and nothing has changed in the intervening years: the founding members have all gone on to become celebrated chefs, presenting their own cookery programmes in southern Paraguay - you know the drill - as well as doing a bit of comedy and TV work on the side. In their wake, numerous Cellar-ites have gone on to emulate their achievements - Dylan Moran and Tommy Tiernan to name but two - and the club is seen as pivotal in the creation of a comedy scene in the city, laying the foundations for all that followed - Olympia Theatre sell-outs, the Laughter Lounge, corporate-backed comedy festivals encompassing every other pub in Dublin etc. . .
Yet for all that, the Cellar looks pretty much the same as it did when it first started: it is still so small - capacity: 60 people - that there is no need for a PA and its interior is sparsely furnished but has a gritty, authentic Dublin charm about it. Let's just say that John Rocha has yet to be asked to redesign it.
The Comedy Cellar's new matron is a former jockey, accountant, and hotel management student who gave up a cushy office job in EMI - where he got to "go on the piss and get high with Sinéad O'Connor" - to try and make a living out of comedy. A garrulous character, Paddy Courtney is delighted to have taken over the administration of a club which gave him his first break in the stand-up comedy.
"The Cellar is the first place I ever did a gig," says Courtney, "so it's a bit special for me to be the new MC. I remember the first open spot I did. I was forced into it by Paddy Hickey and Barry Murphy. I thought, 'I'll do a 5 minutes and see how it goes'. Afterwards I thought, 'that was amazing'. But it was a partisan crowd: mates, family, comedians . . . everybody was there and they were really encouraging so Barry said, 'I've got ten minutes for you next week'. I turned up the next week, having learned off my routine which I must have practised 80 or 90 times.
"On the night, I stood up on stage and immediately at the very back of the room I saw this very sexy blonde one who I noticed was nudging her mate and whispering in her ear and then laughing. I got real paranoid. I thought, 'why is she laughing at me when I haven't even said anything yet?'. My mouth began to dry up. I started to sweat. The first gag died. Then the second. I started talking really quickly - didn't wait for a punchline - and I finished my ten minutes of material in three and half minutes. I sat down humiliated. That was one summer in May. I didn't do another gig till November."
But Courtney persevered and soon the blondes down the back were laughing with, not at, him and a full month's run at the Edinburgh festival followed.
"Since Paddy gave up the job in EMI he's been a much better comic," says Dempsey of his colleague, "although we don't like hanging around with him as much because we don't get any free CDs anymore! But fair play to him. I mean, nobody ever says (adopts brilliant Marlon Brando mumble) 'I cudda bin an accountant. I cudda pushed pencils, Charlie'."
Dempsey himself boasts a varied pre-comedy CV, having been at one time or another an assistant film cameraman, restaurant manager - including a stint as a quality control manager in South-East Asia, and an actor. He still acts, of course - appearing in the Father Ted Christmas special as well as the recent Oirish movie hit, Waking Ned, with the late Ian Bannen. He also appeared in the Couched sketches on Network 2 and will be seen next year on Apres Winfrey and in a feature film directed by Gerry Stembridge and starring Stuart Townsend.
How does Dempsey feel about his year in the job as Cellar MC and what advice does he have for the incoming compere?
"I wouldn't say it was a thankless job to take on because thanks is really all you do get!" he smiles. "But it is a responsibility to take it on because it's still the only club in Ireland that's run by comedians and is for comedians. It's only in the Cellar that anyone - no matter who you are - will get a gig: guaranteed.
"It's the only place where comedians can develop their act and where established comics will still come back to - Dylan, Tommy (Tiernan), Ardal, and Dermot Morgan before going on a tour would all do a few dates in the Cellar to try out the new stuff and see it if works. And it's where all the new guys are going to come through. If they started off in London, they'd never get as far as a second gig and God knows what they'd be doing now."
Dempsey says, though, that the job entails more than just pencilling the names into the book and then slacking off to the pub.
"It's not enough to just book the acts," he says. "You have to be around to see how the acts are developing; like knowing when an open slot is ready to do ten minutes, and when someone doing ten minutes is ready to do twenty. When you get them to that stage, then they're ready to go to the Laughter Lounge or down to Cork's City Limits or wherever."
"Also, there's a responsibility to put on a show that's good enough to bring people back the following week," adds Courtney. "As much as anyone is welcome to come up and try something out, at the same time you don't want to fill the show with a bunch of cack. You have to strike a balance of experienced and new acts."
What's remarkable about the success of the Comedy Cellar is that it has managed to survive for 11 years - and indeed has seen off numerous other comedy clubs that have come and gone around town - without sponsorship, so there are no suits to answer to. (Its brother, The International Comedy Club, run by Des Bishop on Thursday nights, is sponsored by Murphy's). Dempsey, wary of venerating the illustrious past of the club, enthuses about the current crop of comedians currently treading its boards. In particular he praises David O'Doherty, Sean McKenna, Eugene Smith and Tommy Nicholson. Courtney, for his part, is hatching a plan that sounds as inspired as it does unlikely.
"I'd love to get in contact with the likes of Noel V. Ginnity or Hal Roach and bring one of them down to the Cellar and let them have a bash at it. Do a swap with our regular acts."
There's a thought. n
* The Comedy Cellar is on every Wednesday night upstairs in the International Bar. (The International Comedy Club is on every Thursday; and The Comedy Improv on Mondays).