Tommy Tiernan on his Just for Laughs shows: ”You can’t be a hostage to the current climate”

Tommy Tiernan – Just for Laughs Montreal Interview

For Irish comedian Tommy Tiernan, specificity is everything. The host of The Tommy Tiernan Show and star of the beloved series Derry Girls spends most of his free time doing stand-up, much of it to audiences across Ireland. But while Tiernan still tours around the globe regularly (including an upcoming run of shows at Just for Laughs in Montreal), don’t expect him to dial down his set to audiences on this side of the pond.

‘’We have to maintain the courage to be ethnic,’’ says Tiernan via Zoom from Ireland. ‘’I’m deeply rooted into Irish culture, and 90% of the time I’m performing to Irish audiences. So, instead of trying to be a universal comedian, I’ll arrive in Canada as being somebody out of this island.’’

‘’It’s like going to an Indian restaurant, you don’t go for burgers and fries,’’ Tiernan explains. ‘’My hope is always that people will find the turns of phrase interesting. That even if I’m naming places, that the rhythm of those words will be — because they’re new to the ear — will have a kind of curiosity value. If it doesn’t travel, it doesn’t travel, you know, but I just try to stay the same.’’

Tiernan’s comedic sense of place and culture and his drive to push boundaries has earned him fans around the world, especially in Montreal where he has become a favourite at the annual Just for Laughs comedy festival. We spoke with Tiernan about what to expect from his upcoming shows, how stand-up comedy has changed since the start of the pandemic, the final season of Derry Girls, and more.

Tommy Tiernan performs at Le Gesù in Montreal from July 25-30 at 7:00 PM. Tickets are available here.

History with Just for Laughs

Bad Feeling Magazine: You’ve performed at Just for Laughs many times over the years, are there any memories or shows that stand out to you?

Tommy Tiernan: I remember going to see Marc Maron in very small theater and being kind of blown away by him. I remember sharing a dressing room with Mitch Hedberg. I remember somebody who was managing me at the time cornering me in a dressing room and saying, “I’m not a piece of shit on your shoe.” I’ve lots of great memories of the festival.

I remember I used to go and see Andy Kindler do the State of the Industry address. Even though I don’t really know what he’s talking about a lot of the time, it’s still just interesting to see somebody like that work. So, from a comedic point of view, there’s always people worth seeing.

”You can’t be a hostage to the current climate”

Have you found audiences have changed since the start of the pandemic? Have you changed on-stage in any way?

You really have to bulldoze your way through to the current climate. My sense is that people come in to a comedy club room feeling two things. One is slightly nervous because they bring a set of social criteria with them that they want to see protected. You know, they don’t want anybody to be offended. They don’t want anybody to say the wrong thing. They don’t want anybody to be hurt.

At the same time, they have a desire for all of those things to happen. Well, I think your job as a comic is to stay true to the comic instincts. It has many dimensions. One is as a charmer. One is as an oral storyteller. One is as an entertainer. And one is also as a kind of a disrupter. Where you kind of lean, I find, not consciously, but kind of instinctively, lean this way and that way. Again, it’s not fixed, you can have elements of all those influences moving around at the same time.

”They want stories of someone who carries no cultural luggage”

Thus, you can’t be a hostage to the current climate. Right now, I’m very drawn to — I guess it’s almost a Catholic strain — which emerged over the past couple of weeks in the show, and that wouldn’t really be of the moment. [Laughs] So, that’s a very kind of 1950s rural Ireland motif. You have to be outside the time.

And I think that’s when you need a certain amount of confidence and stubbornness, maybe to plow on with that and see where it brings you. There’s no point of being on stage reflecting exactly what the audience is thinking and feeling. Because then you’re no surprise. If you imagine an audience is a family living in a house, next thing is a knock at the door. And this kind of tramp comes in to speak for an hour. I think they want stories of the road; they want stories of someone who carries no cultural luggage.

”You’re consumed with self-loathing and self-disgust”

Do you find yourself worrying about how your material will be received while you’re on-stage? Or do you try to stick to whatever really speaks to you at that moment?

Oh, totally, you have to do that. I mean, afterwards, of course, you’re consumed with self-loathing and self-disgust. But in the moment, you just have to surrender to it and hope that it’s coming from a good place. That’s where the momentum is, the momentum is in the moment. And once you start second guessing yourself on stage, you’re screwed.

A friend of mine gave me some great advice. He said, “prepare meticulously.” So that would be maybe, whatever form a comedian might want to take that advice. But he said, “Once you stand on stage, abandon all preparation.” So, that would, to me, translate as once you get onto the stage, run on instinct. And I’m serious about the thing of vomiting after the show. Once you’re up there, just drive it and drive it fast.

Tommy Tiernan on Derry Girls season 3

A lot of people are probably coming to your stand-up from your performance on Derry Girls. While the show has wrapped up overseas, can you let audiences on this side of the pond what to expect from the final season, and what it was like going through that process?

What I loved about it, from the first thing, was the quality of the writing and the fearlessness of it. There’s a scene in the first series where a dog is in a church, and he pisses through the wooden roof and the dog’s piss falls onto the statue of the Virgin Mary. You know, there’s been people sentenced to death in Iran for less, thank god we live where we do.

So, the writing attracting me was the first thing and how smart it was and how funny, and the second thing was the collegiate aspect of it. Because as a stand-up you basically live and work as an assassin you know, the day of the joker, you do you work on your own. You don’t consult anybody on the stage. It’s all you.

Working in a group was fantastic. I love that. And in terms of the storylines, they’re just bigger and better than last season, the set pieces are bigger. It’s done now. This is the last series, and [series creator] Lisa McGee has just been awarded the Freedom of the City of Derry. It’s a big honor for her and it was brilliant.

You also recently starred in Conversations with Friends; is acting another track you’re hoping to continue to pursue along with stand-up?

Not with any particular degree of commitment. I’m trying not to have any plans really. It’s a funny one, you know. I’m never fully convinced of anything. But when you have a mortgage, you develop the ability to commit to a line of work. [Laughs] I know that I love doing stand-up. It’s athletic. It’s invigorating. There’s a remarkable ignition between the audience and the performer that you might get in bare knuckle boxing or maybe hostage taking. It’s really invigorating. But I don’t really have huge plans if I’m being honest.

Tommy Tiernan performs at Le Gesù in Montreal from July 25-30 at 7:00 PM. Tickets are available here.