Comedian Carol Tobin is a changed woman. Whereas she once described herself as “a tortured soulless female on the quest to find the perfect drink” she can now better be described as “a tortured soulless female no longer on the quest to find the perfect drink.” So what happened – did she actually find the perfect drink?

“No”, she tells me. “I just gave up. I decided there was no such thing as the perfect drink at all.”
But did she ever feel she was getting close to fulfilling her dream?
“I did once. I thought Kopparberg Pear Cider was the perfect drink, but after a while I felt it was just like drinking lemonade, so I decided to abandon my quest altogether.”
She’s been described as a “foul-mouthed, alcoholic, sex fiend with no taste in men.” This no longer seems to fit either, if it ever did.
“I’m not foul-mouthed any more,” she admits. “I used to be. I’ve grown up. Getting older brought on the change! I’m no longer an alcoholic and I could be described as a recovering sex-fiend.”
Last time we spoke, Carol admitted that she had been barred from Jason’s snooker hall in Ranelagh, as well as half the shops in the street. So has she been unbarred?
“I haven’t been back to check,” she laughs, “I’m afraid to in case they recognise me! My hair’s now a bit blonder, so maybe I should chance it!”
She was also barred from the International Bar after she committed the crime of over-running in her very first gig, but was allowed back in on parole some time later.
Despite her experience and stature on the circuit, as proven by her being invited to play the Kilkenny Cat Laughs festival three years on the trot, Tobin still gets nervous before gigs.
“I thought the nerves would fade away as I got more experience, but maybe it works the other way,” she proffers. “The bigger your profile gets, the more you’re likely to take your career seriously and there’s the increasing pressure on you to live up to the billing.”
On her website, Carol admits to wanting to meet alcoholics, offering the following explanation.
“I know it’s such a cliché but they really are such interesting species with their tales of sheer rockbottomness. I would like to get in one of their heads and find out how they really find money for the next drink.”.
Are there any subjects she regards as taboo?
“Not really. I think it’s all about context. Sometimes people don’t actually listen to what you say. They hear a comedian use the word paedophile and they think that somehow the comedian is condoning paedophilia. There’s also the accepted fact that some issues are so difficult for us to deal with in our daily lives that making fun of some aspect of it helps us to deal with it. I don’t set out to offend anyone, but some people look for things to get upset about. I’d advise them not to go to comedy gigs if they’re that sensitive.”
She also acknowledges that there’s still a little prejudice against women comedians, but insists that it’s not a major problem anymore.
“Some female comedians still feel they need to go that one step further for the shock value – they think they need to compete with the fellas,” she says. “I might have fallen into that at the start, maybe subconsciously, but I don’t anymore. If you’re funny, the audiences don’t really care one way or the other.”
While she reckons her recent performance at The Dark Show was probably her best ever, she also recalls the time when she went down so badly at gigs that she gave it up for about four years.
“Silence is the worst response that any comedian has to deal with. Maybe being comfortable with silence is the sign of a good comedian. You can even deal with heckling and booing by coming up with witty responses prepared earlier, and even when I used to sing I felt I was able to hide behind the songs – but for the solo comedian, the stage is a very lonely place if it isn’t working.”
Does she subscribe to the theory that comedians are at heart sad people, with Tony Hancock, Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan notable examples of comedians who battled with various forms of the blues?
“I’m not sure about that, but it’s possible that you get much more interesting material if you’ve gone through some of that. But there are some happy, well-balanced comedians too.”

Carol Tobin will do two shows at the Carlsberg Comedy Festival in the Iveagh Gardens, Dublin from July 24 to 27.