Where Irish comedians once looked to London, Tommy Tiernan is turning his attention to the US comedy circuit. . . but he won't be doing any sitcoms, he tells Brian Boyd
At his first shows in rooms above Galway pubs 10 years ago, Tommy Tiernan dreamed of making it so big he could do a gig in London. "That was the big thing - doing it in London," he says. "I used to look on with awe at people such as Kevin McAleer and Michael Redmond because they had actually done this. They seemed to be like mythical creatures to me - mythical creatures who had conquered this alien territory."
Some 10 years on and he's looking the other way - towards America. Tiernan will spend the next two years working the US circuit and there won't be an Irish show for at least the next 18 months, he says.
"The tour I did before this present one was called Cracked and that finished in June 2004. I started this tour, Loose, in October 2004. I really put all of myself into the shows. I say everything I want to say. And now I need some new excitement, a new challenge. That's why I'm doing this two-year assault on the US.
"I begin with a club tour over there in January, then I've got a Los Angeles theatre run lined up, then I'll be doing New York. It's mad - it's my own little version of Bob Dylan's first folk tour."
Tiernan has signed up with US promoter Arnold Englemann who specialises in bringing UK and Irish talent across the Atlantic. Englemann's big claim to fame is he is the man who helped break Eddie Izzard in the US. He also works with The League Of Gentleman, Bill Bailey and Dylan Moran.
"Of course, Eddie Izzard would be the model here, but not everyone has his talent," says Tiernan. "What really broke Eddie in the US was that he did a six-month run in New York and through word-of-mouth, people such as Tom Waits and Brad Pitt would arrive at his shows. He also recorded a comedy special for the HBO network - which only the very best comedians can do - and that won him an Emmy. Sadly, I don't have Eddie's Napoleonic-like ambition".
It won't all be new ground for Tiernan - he's already built up an impressive profile thanks to some barnstorming appearances at Montreal's Just For Laughs comedy festival (which is where all the US networks go to fish for talent). Such has been the reaction to his previous appearances in Montreal, that last July Tiernan was invited to do his own seven-night run at the festival. To put this in perspective - the only other people who have been so honoured are Bill Hicks and the massive US comic, Chris Rock.
Any doubts Tiernan's material would cross over to North America were swiftly forgotten by the standing ovations he received each and every night of his run in Montreal earlier this year. The Montreal show is a bonus feature on his just-released DVD, and it's instructive viewing. Using the same material he has used to great effect in venues all over Ireland over the last few years, he wills his Montreal audience into submission.
"It's one thing talking about religion, the church and Lent over here, where it is second nature," he says. "But it's a different thing to be doing this peculiarly-Irish material on the far side of the Atlantic. What I decided to do over there was not even try and explain to the audience what I was on about. I just went out with a lot of gusto and flung it at them - I really did roar my way through it."
Although he's been offered various television sitcom spots in the US, he'll be sticking to the live circuit while he's there.
"I've made that mistake before. Years ago, when I was in the UK, I did the Des O'Connor show and the Bruce Forsyth show. I was pushed that way because these shows have 14 million viewers. I remember with the Des O'Connor show I did some material that I had only just thought of and had only done once live before. You learn from that.
"And it happened on US television also. I got a part as an Irish barman in this new sitcom being filmed in Los Angeles. It was written by the woman who wrote the Dharma and Greg show and it had a very spiky script about a single mother. Also in the cast was some guy from Melrose Place and an actress who had played one of the girlfriends on Friends. When we finished the pilot it went to the network and they said they really liked it but they wanted to have more 'likeable characters', so they ended up removing any sense of darkness, any sense of humour from it. It didn't get made in the end."
Previous live shows in the US for Tiernan have shown up surprise findings. "There's a famous club in New York called Caroline's and I played there one night in front of an all-black audience. And it went fantastically well. And similarly with a show in Sacramento in California, the Latinos seemed to really get it. I think white liberals are intellectually bothered by some of the stuff I do.
"This is one of the reasons why I'm doing clubs over there and generally avoiding theatres, to get to a real American audience. I'm quite prepared for the fact that I will be playing to about 12 people a night, but that's the same thing that Bill Hicks did when he first came over here. What I am most looking forward to is playing, for example, in San Francisco and walking around where Lenny Bruce used to walk around and hopefully, as in Lenny Bruce's days, I'll be playing in a club which is next door to a strip joint."
Tommy Tiernan's Loose DVD is out now. He will be signing copies of the DVD today at 1pm in Tower Records, Wicklow Street, Dublin, and at 5pm in Golden Discs, Liffey Valley Shopping Centre