Dara dares

COMEDIAN Dara O'Briain stands on the cusp of very big things. After three appearances as the host of BBC1's Have I Got News For You - labelled "the best stand-in host yet" - he was suddenly the comic every TV chat show wanted to book.

O'Briain just laughs and says: "It was the fulfilment of a childhood dream to banter on television with Paul Merton. Have I Got News For You has been the best thing that's happened to me."

As a result, BBC1's Friday Night With Jonathan Ross featured the Irishman and he earned a slot on Parkinson and the Royal Variety Show. He's also rapidly becoming one of the largest draws on the live circuit.

The comedian made a name for himself in Irish entertainment after becoming a champion debater while studying maths and physics at University College, Dublin. He's now a household name over there, where he is a regular on the hit RTE comedy show, The Panel. Now he's well on the way to being equally acclaimed on this side of the Irish Sea.

Recent accolades include "if you don't laugh at O'Briain, check your pulse - you must be dead".

Now he is embarking on a major-league national tour that astute bookers at South Shields Customs House and Middlesbrough Theatre have snapped up - and he just can't wait to start. O'Briain says: "I love the variety you see when you're travelling about England. Ireland is quite small and uniform, and that is also the image that Britain has. But when you go around it, you find that Britain is in fact fantastically diverse and multi-cultural. That's really underrated."

The tall, genial funnyman, who enjoyed a sold-out run at the Edinburgh Festival last summer, says: "I'm based in London now. When you're a fisherman, you have to live by the sea.

"In the same way, if you're a comedian and you have the chance to work with Stephen Fry and Paul Merton, you're not going to commute over from Dublin. It is too beautiful a place to do stand-up - you've got to be here.

"But that means that I'm going to have English children - and I've got to get over that. What perturbs me most is the thought of hanging onto unnecessary parts of the old country - there should be no set model of society that we are obliged to hold onto. Fear of change and nostalgia for a lost golden age are appalling traits.

"The Irish also have this knee-jerk idea that we're smarter than the Brits. I remember one Irish girl telling me in a London pub, 'they don't even speak English as good as we do!' There was a pause while we thought, 'did she really say that?'"

In addition, O Briain, who has just turned 33, will tackle the thorny topic of getting older "and my vicious contempt for youth. Youth is shoved down our throats all the time - it's over-promoted as the only valid way of life.

When you're 33, you're suddenly half a generation away from youth culture and for the first time you're seeing things like musical movements that you don't understand. Also, the wedding and christening invitations are starting to pile up."

In a routine that will strike a chord with many a couch potato, O Briain will also indulge in an anti-gym rant.

"I was given a gift of some sessions with a personal trainer. She's going to come round to my house and shout things like 'max it to the extreme' and 'feel the rip'.

"Then she's going to take me to the park and kick the shit out of me while people in the surrounding tower blocks laugh at me. I'm not sure if my fitness is worth the humiliation. Maybe it's like Orwell or Brat Camp - they need to break me before rebuilding me in a world of salad."

He does acknowledge that "fitness is a good thing, but it's just such a chore. Also, being a stand-up is not a lifestyle that lends itself very well to it. On tour last year, after the show I'd sit in my hotel room in somewhere like Selby, drinking eight cans of cider and watching the African Nations' Football Tournament on the telly. It's very difficult to find a low-carb salad at 11.30 at night in Selby."

O'Briain is keen to clarify exactly what his tour will entail: "I don't want people to get the idea that it's me talking about rucksacks and holidays in space all the time, it's basically just me messing with people."

His best examples are finding that the male and female UK Window Cleaning Champions were in his audience at Halifax.

"I found out it took them just seven seconds to do three large office windows under competition conditions.

"I soon built that up into a Rocky-style story of triumph over adversity. They've even reappeared in my act when other places have been a bit quiet - 'sod you, in Halifax I met the mixed doubles champions of window cleaning'."

* O'Briain's tour dates are:

May 21, South Shields: The Customs House

Box Office: 0191-454 1234

May 22, Middlesbrough Theatre. Box Office: (01642) 815 181.

Published: 14/04/2005