Widely credited as being the first man to say “fuck” live on TV in his native Ireland, comedian Tommy Tiernan is coming to Stockholm on March 28. That watershed moment catapulted Tiernan to fame, and his manic onstage persona allows him to push – and often breach – the boundaries of what it is acceptable to say in comedy ever since. Often the target of criticism from everyone from religious groups to politicians, Tiernan carries on regardless.
Inspired by both Lenny Bruce and the British sit-com tradition of the 70s and 80s, there is nothing so sacred that he won’t take aim and give it both barrels.
The shamanic stand-up and Perrier award winner tells Totally Stockholm about transferring local references on a global stage, how swearing on live television comes naturally to him, and why age has made him ‘more subtle’ in his mischief.
Your upcoming Stockholm gig is part of a European tour that sees you play 12 cities in 12 days. Do you change your act depending on where you are playing?
No I don’t. I came to the conclusion a few years ago that the stuff that I found interesting was, say a New York comic came to Galway – I wanted to hear him talk about New York, and it’s the same for me going to some other place. All my stories come from travelling around Ireland, so when I’m in Stockholm I’ll be telling a story about Belmullet, I’ll be telling a story about Carlow, instead of trying to be global. The easiest thing for me is to tell stories about Ireland.
I don’t really change the act – I don’t even change references. If there’s stuff that people don’t understand, I think it actually adds to it.
Are you not afraid that the audience might get left behind?
If you’re watching some Mississippi blues player and he uses the odd turn of phrase that you couldn’t quite get, or mentions a town that you’ve never heard of, it kind of adds to the whole exoticness of the thing.
That’s how I treat playing abroad. Plough on, plough on, and just trust that people have a curiosity about other places. You trust that the people in Stockholm would be interested to hear about Ireland, rather than just a generic thing.
It’s also easier for me – on the tour we’re doing 12 different countries in 12 days, you don’t want to be changing the act every morning to get ready. I prefer just sticking to my guns.
In the early part of your career you were perhaps best known for mercilessly butchering some of Ireland’s most sacred cows live on TV earlier in your career. Have you mellowed with age?
No, I’d have as much mischief in me as Gandalf. I think you just get better at it. Maybe when you’re younger you’re like a kid with autism – you go into the house, ‘Fuck you! Fuck you!’ But as you get older it’s almost like you come in, you sit down you have a cup of tea and people think you’re normal – but as you’re leaving they realize you’ve pissed on the floor. You’re much more subtle in your mischief.
You went on Ireland’s ‘Late Late Show’ (the world’s longest-running talk show) and said ‘fuck’ live on air – was that deliberate?
The pressure of being on the ‘Late Late’ is so great that the easiest thing to do is just stick to the rhythms that work when you’re performing live. Sometimes the word ‘fuck’ would be integral to the rhythm of a sentence, and that’s all that was. I wasn’t part of any great revolution.
I think the only thing that I might have done is that I might have made the word “fuck” a little more acceptable on the TV. The only reason that happened was because I took the act I was doing in comedy clubs and didn’t change it.
You’re a notable absentee from the list of stand-ups that use social media platforms like Twitter – why is that?
I did Twitter for about six or seven months, and I found I was starting to get more concerned with the virtual world than the real one. I was sitting with the kids and I’d be more concerned about what people thought of the latest joke that I posted than the fact that the child had just fallen head-long into the fireplace. So I felt “there’s something going on here, I need to quit this.”
And also – for you to be interesting live, if you’re too available, either on TV or on the internet or on podcasts, there’s no reason for people to go to see you live. They get you for nothing anyway. When someone comes to town, you want to go to see them because you’re not getting to see them anywhere else.
Besides, I’m better on stage than I am on TV, I’m more comfortable with it.
You’ve toured all over the world, acted, made documentaries, presented radio shows – what keeps drawing you back to live performance?
It’s my job. It’s what I do for a living, and it’s probably the only thing that I can do.
It’s easy for me to do it too, and I’m not very good at doing stuff that I don’t enjoy. I’m not very good at doing stuff I can’t do – I wouldn’t be a great man for getting fit, or … effort. All my school reports were kind of ‘this child is obviously intelligent, but isn’t doing anything.’ It’s probably why I wasn’t doing anything.
Theoretically it’s the sweetest thing in the world. What do I do? I go around from place to place telling stories. That’s it. That’s the most uncomplicated job in the world.
Tommy Tiernan is at Hilton Stockholm Slussen for Raw Comedy Club on March 28.
