Father Ted star Ardal O'Hanlon to headline Catherington Comedy Festival: ‘There's no hiding place in standup’​ | Interview

And now he is coming to headline the opening night of this year’s second Catherington Comedy Festival on Friday, July 28.

Ardal has recently wrapped up touring his last standup show, The Showing Off Must Go On, as he admits: ‘I think I've milked Showing Off for all it's worth for a few years – from a couple of years before Covid and the year or so since, as that interrupted the tour. I think it's run its course now!’

He is now starting to put together a new show, but he admits he is not a fast worker in that respect.

‘My starting point for everything is whatever you were doing last, you take little bits of that and play with that and build on it – that's my starting point for the next cycle.

‘I've never been one to sit down and write a full show from scratch, like the people who go to the Edinburgh Festival every year – they will get an idea and they will start with a blank page and write a show under extreme duress to have it ready for the Edinburgh Festival. I don't think I've ever really done that – my stuff is just always evolving, painfully slowly, I assure you!’

He is planning to unveil new material at Catherington, though.

‘What I would ideally like to do on the night are some of the bits that weren't quite ready for the tour, but I was working on while I was touring, and some bits that I just began to introduce towards the end of that, so now they're fully cooked, if you like, and ready to go.

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‘It's the next stage, and then hopefully in another three or four years time I'll have another show that I'll be really happy with and will be reasonably coherent, and funny, hopefully, with everything working properly.

‘That's the way I've always worked, I'm not sure it's the best way to work or anything, but it's always suited me.’

While he is (possibly) exaggerating for effect about how long the next show will take to write, it’s not that Ardal is lazy, it’s because he has so many other things on his plate.

‘Because I've been lucky enough to do other things with my life, sometimes I do have to leave standup for a while and come back to it and leave it and come back to it, which again is not ideal, it's just the way things have worked out for me over the years.

‘It's been fine, but I'm not really a planner – I'm not like Stalin, I don't have these great five year plans. I want to avoid that kind of megalomania...’

While TV work has certainly kept him busy, he says he enjoys standup ‘more than ever now’.

‘I think that definitely comes with age and experience. I wouldn't have the same anxiety about doing standup that I would have had, say, 20 years ago. I'm doing it because I enjoy it – it's not like a chore. It's not my bread and butter or my day-to-day job, it's more of an obsession, a passion, an itch you need to scratch, y'know?

‘I don't think you can retire from standup, once you're smitten with it and you've got a taste for it. It's never come easy, don't get me wrong, it's not like I can just rock up and do a gig – you do have to prepare and be mentally prepared and everything.

‘You have to be on your toes, but I think that's what I like about it – it keeps you very lively, and interested in the world around you. It suits someone like me who probably doesn't have a great attention span – it's not like working on a film script or a novel which is all consuming. With standup, you can do it in chunks, you can do it in bits, you can have an idea in the morning and try it out that evening. There's an immediacy to it that I really like.

‘You are master of your own destiny with standup, which is good - you're not waiting for the phone to ring all the time like actors are. You can pop into a local comedy club if you feel the need to get something off your chance, something urgent that the public must know immediately!’

O’Hanlon actually helped kickstart the standup scene in his home city of Dublin, when he founded the International Comedy Cellar, upstairs (naturally) in the International Bar in Dublin with his friends Kevin Gildea and Barry Murphy in the early 1990s.

‘It’s not a huge scene in Dublin. A lot of Irish comedians who've done well in the UK would have come through our tiny little club.

‘I love living here (in Dublin) and all that, but I think the circuit is on a more professional footing in the UK – there's more places to play, there's a much bigger population and the standards are higher. It's a better place to ply your trade. Not to say that we don't have interesting and quirky comedian in Ireland, but the more ambitious ones, I think, will always go to the UK.’

And Ardal says he loves trying out new material in low-key comedy club appearances.

‘It's a great leveller. You won't get away with anything, really. The audiences are younger in comedy clubs than they would be in theatres, so I have to adjust as well a lot. It keeps you sharp – it makes you realise the sort of things people actually want to hear.

‘While you mostly stick to your own guns, you do listen to what the audience tells you as well – that's the reason for going into those places, to help shape your jokes, and shape your act. There's no hiding place in standup.

‘I remember in New York many years ago, and I was doing a kind of open spot at a club, it was one of those open mic nights and (American standup and sitcom legend) Jerry Seinfeld walked in because he wanted to try out some stuff for an upcoming TV special. Of course the audience went crazy for the first few minutes – he couldn't even open his mouth, you know Americans do tend to go slightly overboard – they were really excited. But as soon as he starts his act, he's judged on the quality of the material. And it was hit and miss, which was really refreshing for me, who was a big fan of Seinfeld, to see. Even the very, very top comedians of all time still have to write the stuff and try it out. It was great to see that – I was a young comedian at the time – there's no shortcut. You have to do the work.’

Ardal’s most recent TV credit is in the Disney+ show, Extraordinary. In a world where everyone develops a superpower at 18, the show’s protagonist, 25-year-old Jen, didn’t. Ardal plays Jen’s dead dad, who speaks through her friend Carrie, whose power is to channel spirits. It’s funny and surprisingly heartwarming, if rather unorthodox.

‘I haven't actually seen it yet,’ he admits, ‘It takes me forever to watch stuff that I've been in. I haven't even watched Father Ted yet.’

Pause.

‘That’s not strictly true.

‘It was a lovely job to be in because the scripts were really good – normally that kind of high concept show would pass me by, but I loved the writing in it and it was very fresh. There was an edge to it, but also a lovely innocence to it as well. It was just a lovely show to be in, and she's amazing, the girl who plays my daughter.

‘That's my fate in life now, to play dead dads. Not even alive dads,’ he deadpans, ruefully.

He was also the recurring character Eamonn in the hit Channel 4 show Derry Girls which scooped up numerous awards over its three season run.

‘That's a smart show,’ he says, ‘and a great celebration of that part of Ireland, and woman generally. It's got a real warm heart to it, even though, again, it had a bit of an edge to it and was a bit frantic in places. It was a real celebration of community and family, school days.

‘It was nice to be part of that, and in the last few months I've been working with two of the cast in a play in London, Dancing at Lughnasa – Siobhan McSweeney who plays Sister Michael and Louisa Harland who plays Orla. That was great, it was a little reunion.

‘It's a very celebrated Irish play that they put on at the National Theatre. I don't do many plays, so it was a real honour to do that one. The last one I did before that was 10 years ago with Brian Cox.

‘It's great do plays now and again. Coming from a standup background, it's a real novelty being part of a team for a change, as opposed to going out there by yourself night after night.’

Of course it was as Father Dougal McGuire, the sweet-but-dim priest living with the titular Father Ted which rocketed Ardal to fame. Regularly hailed as one of the greatest sitcoms of all time, there were three series from 1995 to 1998. The show was reportedly set to wrap after that, but the death of Dermot Morgan, who played Father Ted, of a heart attack a day after filming wrapped guaranteed there would be no more episodes. It is still often shown on Channel 4 and its offshoot channels.

Ardal had previously said that he didn’t want to be remembered just for Dougal, but clarifies: ‘I'm very much at peace with the show, I always was really.

‘I suppose you just want to do a variety of things in your career and I've always tried very hard to do different things, or at least be seen for different roles. It was one of the reasons I like why I quite like doing theatre, as you get the chance to do more dramatic roles.

‘But I love Father Ted, and I love sitcoms generally – just to be part of I suppose sitcom history, I'm chuffed to bits, to be honest with you. If I was remembered for nothing else – so what? It's a nice thing to be remembered for. It's not every day that you get to do an amazing role like that. It's once in a lifetime, if you're lucky.’

And he still gets people referencing it on a regular basis. ‘Pretty much... every day! There'll be some reference to it every day if you're out and about. But it's generally very positive and not at all intrusive. People are friendly about it – it's a show which is much loved.’

Other stars appearing at the festival over July 28-30 include Chris McCausland, Shazia Mirza, Troy Hawke, Ivo Graham, Nick Helm, Rosie Holt and more, all with compere James Alderson.

Prices are from £20 for a session to £115 for a VIP weekend pass. Go to comedyunderthestars.co.uk.