You'll laugh your head off - on 16/11/12

SMALL PRINT:WHAT happens if Michael McIntyre turns into Jim Davidson over the next 20 months? This is just one of the conundrums facing Irish fans of the middle class's favourite comic, as promoters MCD announce that tickets for his Dublin shows at the 02 in November 2012 go on sale next week.

Being asked to commit now to a night out on either November 16th or November 17th of 2012 is surely a tall order. What if, by the time the shows arrive, you’ve lost all interest in stand-up comedy or you’ve developed a pathological hatred of McIntyre’s “Have you ever noticed that . . . ?” shtick? What if we’re all in a debtor’s prison by then? What if the 02 has been sold off to the IMF who have turned it into a forced labour camp?

The 750,000 tickets for McIntyre’s massive 58-date tour are expected to sell out briskly next week, leaving McIntyre with €40 million (minus costs). And just to monetise the tour even further, there will be a DVD released shortly after it ends. McIntyre’s two previous live DVDs have sold a record-breaking two-and-a-half million copies to date.

While not to everyone's taste – and the cod-Irish material he delivered at the Olympia Theatre last summer was just plain embarrassing – at least he has managed to produce a very good memoir, Life And Laughing, which was a surprising good read (as stand-up comics' memoirs go) and despite being one of the richest comedians in the world, he has suffered for his middle-brow art.

“Just four years ago I was £40,000 in debt – credit cards, loans, all that, with absolutely no assets and often no way of actually meeting the rent,” he has said. “I was at the point where they were cutting up my credit cards in front of me in shops. And then when it did start turning around for me, the bank wouldn’t believe me. I tried to pay a cheque in and got grilled: ‘Where exactly did you get this money, Sir?’”

The tickets for McIntyre’s two 02 shows 20 months away cost €44.50 and if you do buy any try not to find yourself on November 18th 2012 thinking to yourself: “Wasn’t I supposed to be somewhere this week?”

– Brian Boyd