Comic Tommy Tiernan Talks About Irishness And Liking Pubs Over The Opera House

Whenever Irish comic Tommy Tiernan heads Down Under, it's usually not a warm wave of welcoming Australian applause that greets him — instead, it's "the roar of the Irish". He once recounted to an Irish newspaper how he got so emotional coming out to perform for a crowd of thousands of "exiles — people on the far side of the world from Manorhamilton, Cork, Tubbercurry, Borris," at a Sydney Opera House gig in 2013 that he had to turn away for a moment and gird himself.

He was back on the Opera House stage recently in late 2015 performing in an all-star line-up as part of the Just For Laughs gala, so the crowd wasn't quite as stacked with Irish expats — which suits him down to the ground.

"I get the sense, in situations like [that Opera House gig in 2013], of being the focal point of people's Irishness for the length of a show," says Tiernan. "They fuel their Irishness through you. You wouldn't want that to be a way of life as a performer — it would start to feel fake. That Opera House gig was nice, though. It was such an iconic venue and I got the sense that Irish people owned it for the night. They sure as fuck didn't design it but they probably built it, we have no eye for architecture.

"I'd love to talk about stuff like monkeys and the Philippines — but it's whatever you're drawn to, really."

"I'm very proud to talk to Irish people abroad but I have to keep moving on as well. I find it very thrilling to play to audiences that might not be familiar with me. I did a gig in Russia and I found that very exciting. I'm very keen to play to Australians — I'm keen to keep everything very challenging for me."

So, Tiernan's heart lies outside of gleaming 2679-seater theatres, or God forbid, the arena stand-up gigs that have become popular in the UK and US. He says he still thrives in rooms that feel "slightly broken".

"When my 2016 tour starts, I'll be doing venues like the Enmore — rooms that look like the type of place Nick Cave might have played," he says. "There are rooms like that scattered around the world, and any opportunity to play them is great. The way stand-up has gone over the past five or ten years, the mainstream manifestation of it has been the people who are able to sell out arenas and go on TV panel shows — but there are also amazing rooms out there, and stand-up is so cheap to put on. All you need is a room in a pub. I like happening upon one of those, like a little 80-seater pub in Islington in London, or St Kilda in Melbourne, or in Amsterdam, or Berlin, and what works about them all is they're slightly broken. They're not formal rooms, they don't look expensive. They're out-of-the-way, run-down places and they work so well for stand-up. You're 1000 miles away from that in an arena or in the Opera House, but they are out there."

And as for the material planned for his upcoming Out Of The Whirlwind tour, Tiernan says he'll be returning to his old staples of sex, love, religion, family, identity, and death.

"I don't have any choice in that matter," he says. "I'd love to talk about stuff like monkeys and the Philippines — but it's whatever you're drawn to, really."