Comedian John Colleary speaks with Sínann Fetherston about stand-up, sketch, comedy personas, and his new show, Loud and Colleary.
Fans of Tommy Tiernan will have undoubtedly spotted Sligo funnyman John Colleary warming up rooms across Ireland throughout the long-running tour of Tomfoolery.
Speaking over Zoom, the stand-up explains that he had crossed paths with Tiernan over the years, and had even performed sketches to audiences of The Tommy Tiernan Show for a number of series, but it was a post-lockdown invitation that truly cemented their working relationship.
"Coming out of COVID I wasn't really sure about what I was going to do because I had two years of no work," he says, "and then I got a shout from Aiken [Productions] about doing two support slots for Tommy in Castlebar in February of 2022."
Those two support slots quickly transformed into a sixteen month tour that brought Colleary on the road with Tiernan, an experience that he said welcomed him back to the world of stand-up.
"We did get on," he smiles. "We had a lovely tight group and everyone was coming from the same place. It was really sweet how it worked as a group."
Throughout our chat, Colleary speaks often about his love for collaboration, whether it be his time writing for radio shows, creating sketches for The Savage Eye, or playing the beloved character of Garda Horan on Hardy Bucks.
Despite this talent for teamwork, the funnyman is now gearing up for his own for a national tour of Loud and Colleary, a show that will bring him to Ballyshannon, Westport, Ballina, Wexford, Greystones, Dundalk, Drogheda, Belfast, Dublin, Kilkenny, Portlaoise, Athlone, Limerick and the Galway Comedy Festival.
"I don't know what to think about it right now because it's so different from what I've been doing," he admits. "I've been working every weekend normally but not with this kind of emphasis, and I'm a little bit random and undisciplined when it comes to writing stuff and organising stuff."
The so-called 'stuff' is a wildcard mix of impressive impressions and off-the-cuff interactions - a spontaneous element that Colleary hopes to bring to every show.
"It's kind of a balance," he agrees. "It's all about the audience anyway. The longer I do this, the longer I realise that it's just about the people in the room. OK, I'm there and I've got materials and ideas and stuff I'm going to talk about, but it's always the energy that's there that gives me the impetus to move with it."
The crackling energy of a good room is what gets most comics through any number of hecklers or thoughts of self-doubt. The magic of a good gig, says John, is what keeps comics going.
"You're taken out of yourself - that's the objective. Get people out of their own heads with entertainment and distraction so they don't have to think about their own lives. I think that's cool, it's a cool thing to do in that respect."
Although he has worked across TV, film, radio, and the stage since his early 30s, the Sligo man says he's an introvert at heart, and had to suffer through a number of nightmare gigs before getting his career on track.
"My mindset was: I'm going to fail at this but I'm not going to get put off. I'll just keep going until I get to a point where I'm not failing or I've failed completely," he laughed.
"I wasn't outgoing, you know? A lot of comics are like that; they're more reclusive. The comedian thing is a bit of an alter ego, I suppose, a persona."
Insisting that his first five years of stand-up were fueled by adrenaline alone, Colleary says it took a "good ten years" to settle into the profession.
"I know that sounds kind of crazy, but even now, in terms of hometown gigs, I sit they're going, 'I can't do this, I'll be found out'. That's an on-going thing. I mean, I know what I do now but there were years where I didn't, and each gig was telling me something else."
"I feel really, really happy that I'm doing it," he continues, reflecting on his upcoming tour dates. "I'm really grateful that I have the chance to do it - the Tommy thing was a springboard for that - and I'm really grateful for all the people that have bought tickets."
For more information on John's Loud and Colleary tour, click here.
