Mee feat, high and risin'

"We knew who Cliff Richard was, 'cos like, we'd see him every Christmas on telly, but we didn't know who The Young Ones were at all."

Frank McCourt may have had it rough in Baile Lumni, but Michael Mee's Cork was much, much worse.

"We only had two channels, and at that time RTE weren't producing anything like the amount of quality comedy programming that they do now, yeah, so I didn't have a lot of influences actually. I'd heard Monthy Python records and stuff, but I was in my twenties before I saw the show on TV. I'd consider Woody Allen and Eddie Izzard to be influences."

I'm asking about influences because Michael Mee seems an unlikely candidate for stand-up star status. Unassuming in person yet a veteran of hundreds of gigs in this country and the UK, Mee in recent years has organised, financed and staged a series of independent comedy shows in Dublin, including Mee And The Bishop, and Mee And My Friends. How did he get started in stand-up?

"I was lecturing in Law and had decided on a career break as I was suffering from fatigue at the time, I went to see Tommy Tiernan and I thought he was brilliant and I also thought 'I could do that'. The thing is, the people I went with said 'Yeah, you could' so I had no excuse not to try. I'd no fear of speaking to crowds because I'd been a lecturer, and I was a funny lecturer, which isn't easy when you're talking about torts or conveyancing. In exams students used to respond to questions with 'As Mr Mee so wittily put it', so they'd remember the joke but not the point of Law.

"Anyway, I'd always written and I had some short stories and two unpublished novels so I knew I could write. Unfortunately I was quite ill when I started out, though in a way that helped because my stomach was already in bits so it couldn't get a lot worse. I would be in and out of the bathroom countless times before the gig and getting sympathetic glances from other performers, when I was really like that all the time then anyway."

What sort of material was Mee performing in those early outings?

"I used to just tell stories really, including the odd one liner. I drew on some of the written stuff I had and used that - 'I know it's only teasing but when you're cross-eyed you can't just look the other way'. Some things that I'd written actually worked better live, like: 'The Girl Of My Dreams; Do I really want to be seen out in public with that slut?' But most of it was just telling stories about stuff that had happened and that's definitely where I'm at these days, more autobiographical, more confessional. I can't really do the cool comedian sipping a cocktail, dragging on a cigarette and being blasé. I'd rather be honest. Plus I don't drink or smoke."

After his initial success in venues like the Comedy Cellar Mee toured with Tommy Tiernan who had by now become a friend. However,

having come up through the 'five-minute,

ten-minute, twenty-minute' ranks, he felt that

the best way forward was to promote his own theatre shows.

"I'd done So You Think You're Funny for Channel 4, and I got to doing twenty-minute sets reasonably quickly. Then I went to Edinburgh with a group of Irish stand-ups including Paddy Courtney, Deirdre O'Kane and Jonathan Gunning, the great forgotten hero of Irish comedy in my opinion, who's now studying mime at the Jaques LeCoq school in Paris. So we did twenty-five nights, and it was really well received and I got the idea to do a similar thing in Dublin. So I teamed up with Des Bishop for Mee And The Bishop in '97, and though we'd both done a bit of TV we really weren't sure if this would work. In the end we got 170 people on the first night, there were people sitting in the aisles, and the rest of the nights were the same. You can wait around for people to offer you slots, but the situation is often tied up with red-tape by promoters, so really it's handier just to do it yourself. Mee, Myself And I features me, Simon O'Leary and Dave O'Doherty as MC, and runs for two consecutive Fridays at the Shelter. We're also considering having some music afterwards 'cos I've always fancied myself as a DJ. It'll be a good, classy, funny night out."

Mee is a slight figure who confesses to still being plagued by chronic fatigue syndrome, although a strict diet has alleviated his illness to a degree.

"I'm actually talking about it in the act this time round, there is a funny side to it. I'm afraid I do that classic comedian thing where you try out material in the pub on your mates and keep the bits that get the laughs. The downside to that is that my mates think the shows are crap because they've heard all the stuff before. Actually one of the best things about doing a show like this is that people are coming to see you, it's very flattering really. After doing about 250 gigs it appears that I've finally got a fanbase and that's great!"

Mee, Myself And I is at the Shelter, Vicar St on Friday, April 10th and Friday April 17th