Funny Talk: Colm O’Regan

Stay Colm & Carry On

aking his Greystones debut at The Whale on Saturday, August 28th, Colm O’Regan reveals just what tickles his funny bone…

I was mediocre but not battered by the experience, so I came back and pretty much haven’t stopped since.

I got to a few comedy festivals too, including the Montreal Just For Laughs which scared me and excited me in equal measure – like I was back to my first day at big school – and got me thinking about doing stand-up full time.

In 2010 I finally plucked up the courage to quit my job. It was the recession so there was plenty of cover as everyone else was out of work as well. Since then it has been a job that continually excites me, scares me, and sometimes makes me wonder why? But mainly it suits me.

I like watching someone get the joke I just told. It’s a connection. Even during lockdown, watching someone in their sitting-room laugh -even with their mic muted– makes me think I’ve done a good job.

And that’s what we all want to do, isn’t it?

My Inspirations…

D’Unbelievables: A Simple Oul’ Salad
One of the greatest bits of character comedy you’ll see. Jokes buried within it – up agin a wall in the middle of the field, wan shot, bang-bang – but also the tribulations of the only man around the place to do a bit at all, Pat Shortt’s Dan is perfect.

Laurel & Hardy: Block-Heads
Two minutes of physical comedy that makes you root for the adult against a child in the way that Home Alone nearly did. This Laurel and Hardy piece works on so many levels especially when things keep going down flights of stairs.

The Simpsons
While some think it’s gone on long enough, I don’t think we – approximately two and a half generations of comedians – realise how much we owe to The Simpsons in terms of comedy style. The cutaway to a bizarre situation, the puncturing of pomposity. When I look at so much of my different types of writing, I can find traces of The Simpsons there.

Ali Wong
Best ever standup about becoming a mother you could find. It’s delightfully filthy. She recorded it when she was 7 months pregnant. And she didn’t come to play.

Toast of London
Any scene where Steven Toast is in the voiceover booth just makes me laugh so much because it shows how you can make something funny about a niche area without people needing to know the specifics. ANY topic can be funny if you set it up right.

The Sitcom
Most sitcoms repeat very similar jokes in every episode. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Laughing at something you know is coming. And I like this too because my father laughed at it every time. And I like memories of him laughing. It’s ‘Every Time Hyacinth Bucket fell into a hedge when the dog barked’. It’s a reminder that comedy is lots of things to lots of people but sometimes they just want to laugh at a dog barking.

Stewart Lee
It’s probably a cliché for every comedian to reference Stewart Lee, seeing as he’s often seen as the comedian’s comedian. But cliches are there for a reason. This is one of the first Stewart Lee clips to go what one would call viral. It’s also 15 years on YouTube which makes it like the Wright Brothers plane in terms of Internet Years. I also love it because it reminds us what a great comedian Michael Redmond was (and still is), long before he had played Father Stone in Father Ted.

The Greatest TV Joke Ever Told
The TV series Police Squad was cancelled after only 5 or 6 episodes. It later became the Naked Gun film series but before that Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielson) had some of the cleverest jokes of its time. So clever that one executive decided to cancel it because he thought audiences were too stupid to get it. Anyway here’s the joke that will be told in a hundred years time. Assuming we have locksmiths.

You can catch Colm O’Regan at The Whale on Saturday, August 28th at 8pm here, and check out his official website here.