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Comedian and television presenter Dara Ó Briain.

Photo courtesy Dara Ó Briain

Popular Irish entertainer performs across Canada

By Jim Gordon and Leeta Liepins

Published 12:32 PDT, Fri October 27, 2023

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Dara Ó Briain is a very popular TV host, stand-up comedian, author, and journalist. He just wrapped up a very successful comedy tour here in Canada. That tour is called, So, Where Were We? We had the opportunity of being in the audience at his live show in Vancouver, followed by a private interview the next day.

OCT: It was such a pleasure to attend your show, you had us laughing, crying at times, angry at other times, all from your great stories.

DO: A good rule is to never let people know what the show is about because people think “Do I really want to go see that?” but once I have you in the room, then I can do my long stories that don’t sound interesting outside of the room. This way I can share the whole story. For instance, in my adoption story I first draw the audience in with a sad experience creating a beautiful tension with the audience and then, it’s very easy to make the audience happy again.

OCT: In your show, you alluded to the reactions from different audiences around the world. You literally travelled across our country to perform from Newfoundland to the West Coast, Vancouver. Are the audiences all laughing at the same thing or do you find there are differences?

DO: I do notice a slight difference when I travel to certain places. Like for instance, in Edmonton and Calgary it’s different. And it might simply be that there are fewer ex-pats there. On the other hand, when I played Toronto and Vancouver, there was a chunk of Irish and a chunk of British in the audience and that added a certain energy in the audience. When you go into Calgary, there’s far fewer British and Irish population. That’s the only time where it feels slightly culturally different, you’re not as pronounced or coastal as America would be.

OCT: One of the things we have really enjoyed about the work that you did on Mock the Week was that you’re clearly a very funny and witty man. I love the fact that you let the inmates do their thing. You’re obviously piloting the show but you don’t feel the need to get in the way of what these guys are doing. You’re there to run the thing and you can get them from A to B, but you’re clearly confident and secure enough not to override the flow. I think that’s one of the reasons you are a perfect host.

DO: Thank you for the lovely compliments but as an Irishman, I’m finding the compliments very difficult to handle. We don’t do compliments; we’re not raised to get compliments. We haven’t developed a social mechanism to handle them.

OCT: Okay, no more compliments. The second part of your comedy show is very different because you talk about something that’s dear to your heart and very emotional. You talk about searching for your birth mother. We laughed, we cried and we got angry at the system’s inadequacies, but the story does have a great ending. Was this something you always wanted to include in your comedy show?

DO: I probably wouldn’t normally give that much of myself because I usually can make up stuff. I have found in some ways that if you’re too honest it gets in the way of you being able to invent say for instance, an imaginary child for a joke in the moment when you need it.

However, it’s interesting when you’re just given a story that touches on something significant, and adoption is a huge thing in Ireland. In Ireland we’re working through the issues. I’m not sure if it’s the same here in Canada with the big institutions. It was shocking that you couldn’t get your own birth certificate, and 20 years ago, there was a law that made it a criminal offence for an adopted person to seek out their birth parents. Let’s just say Ireland liked it secrets. And that would be putting it mildly.

OCT: Your story does have a great ending as shared with the audience, because you actually did find your birth mother and it’s wonderful. And like you said on stage, as a result of this you now have a whole new family.

DO: Adopted people know that there’s a tremendous initial flurry of activity and interest at the beginning, as these are the most exciting times. But afterwards, you need to establish how to continue the relationship and figure out, what do I get from this.

Obviously, I already have parents so they’re not going to take the place of that but now, I realize that I also have siblings. Weirdly the siblings are the thing that you keep contact with as they are a very interesting addition to your life, and it’s been a very positive experience. On a side note, I have to say that I have completed 153 performances of this most recent show and Vancouver was absolutely one of the best times.

OCT: For our viewers, Dara Ó Briain is very active on social media, he has a YouTube channel, and his website daraobriain.com. Dara can also be seen on the TV show Mock the Week on BritBox.

You can watch the interview in full at richmondsentinel.ca/videos