Who wants to be a stand-up comedian? Not Dearbhail McDonald, that's for sure. The Drivetime co-host spoke to comedian and 2fm presenter Taran O’Sullivan about the confidence-boosting possibilities of standing in front a crowd and trying to make them laugh. Taran tells Dearbhail that she went to drama school to train as an actor, but she was only really interested in the funny parts:
"A lot of comedians are failed actors and vice versa, like it’s a very normal path to take."
There was a small stand-up element to Taran’s actor training, and it was while doing that that she decided stand-up was what she wanted to do. She was only 20 at the time, but things started off pretty well:
"I had beginner’s luck with comedy, which I think is a big thing. And my first few gigs went really, really well. But then it gets harder."
Aspiring/not-aspiring stand-up Dearbhail wanted to know what it’s like standing up in front a crowd and attempting to convince them that you’re funny. Taran's answer is admirably measured:
"It’s so nerve-wracking and it’s so personal, but I would say it normalises because there’s a lot of people there doing that and people are there to see that. Like, I did a sky dive once and that day, everyone was doing a sky dive, so it was normal in that [context]"
Taran mentioned that stand-up is so personal and it’s one of the things that Dearbhail focuses on – how hard it must be to have to give so much of yourself when you’re standing in front of that mic. Audiences aren’t interested in everyday stuff where nothing unusual happens, Taran says:
"They want to hear the time the washing machine broke and you had to wear your dad’s suit to work. Like they want to hear about the bad times and, like me as a comedy audience as well, that’s what I want to hear – when things went really wrong for people. So you have to be really vulnerable about this is what happened, this is how I felt, I was so embarrassed."
A lot of the stories Taran tells on stage are true – "No one is safe," she says – but she usually changes the names to protect the guilty. Being real is essential when you’re storytelling:
"I think they have to be true or else – you know, people know when you’re putting it on... But like, dating in 2024 is so difficult anyway, the jokes kind of write themselves."
Dearbhail wants to know how Taran deals with it when things go wrong and the laughs don’t seem to be coming or a gag falls flat. Taran’s been there and she has a strategy:
"Like a dump truck, you go backwards and you go back to something that they liked. So, I always start off with something really strong. Like, I’ve a line that I open with that I will feel so – when I finally have to let it go, 'cause, it’s not even really that funny anymore – and when I finally have to let it go, I’ll be so sad ‘cause that calms me down ‘cause I know most people like it."
John chips in wondering if Taran still gets nervous when she’s doing stand-up and it nerves are a good thing. Yes, is the answer and she recounts how she was opening for Emma Doran and had to fill 25 minutes:
"And I thought, ‘God, I’m probably about 23, 24, I’ll start wrapping things up.’ And I looked down at my watch and it was 12 minutes. And I’d got to nearly the end of everything I was going to do. I wanted to die."
Yikes. The subject of heckling came up, inevitably and Taran tells John and Dearbhail about what she says is the worst heckle she ever had:
"A man heckled me and said your dress is really ugly. And I just felt, like, everyone froze, like the tension in the room and I was like, I did not know what to say. Like, that dress is now folded and put away somewhere and it will never see the light of day."
You can just picture the slightly-inebriated man (of course it’s a man) thinking he’s being funny, but actually just being mean and ruining the moment for everyone. No one paid to hear that guy try – and fail – to be funny. Taran reckons most hecklers in Ireland don’t mean any harm, but this dress guy definitely did. Down with that sort of thing.
You can hear Dearbhail and John’s conversation with Taran by clicking above.