“One’s not the same bag of cats that you are at twenty-whatever when you’re forty-whatever. You’re a different collection of lumps. The world has changed. I’ve changed. Everything’s changed. Of course you don’t go about it the same way because you’d look like an idiot if you’re talking about chasing girls or fashion or whatever you don’t care about anymore. Your material changes with your life.”
I can’t tell if I’ve just been chided for asking a silly question, but I don’t really mind. If I could tell 12 year old me that Bernard Black had just referred to himself as a ‘bag of cats’ during our conversation he would have been ecstatic, even if it was followed by ‘you little dick’.
Dylan Moran was one of my original comedy heroes. My parents introduced me to Black Books and I discovered his stand up when YouTube ruined comedy DVD’s forever, and when you talk to him it’s surprising how similar his everyday speech is to his stand up. He tends not to tell jokes, just poetically tell the truth from a different perspective to most. For some reason it reminds me of Hunter S Thompson, just slightly tipsy rather than completely manic.
He’s currently rounding off his Off The Hook world tour, his first show after a break of three years. Given that he’s been performing comedy since 1992 and has been touring consistently ever since, I ask how he approached writing after such a gap.
“This one was a bit different”, he explains. “I tried more material out at the club near me to work things out. It wasn’t so much the writing, I’m always writing, but it was not being on stage for a while that threw me. It’s amazing how quickly you forget, but then you start doing it for a while and this deep memory of it comes back and you find you’re doing things you don’t rationalise; you’re not thinking about doing them but it’s in there, you just forgot. It’s like being in a big house and you end up going into that room and you go ‘oh yeah, I haven’t been in here in years but here everything is.’”
The tour has been going for over a year, or “385 years” according to Dylan, and he says the show has changed since the first few performances, but he doesn’t “know exactly how”.
“I’m trying to make it into the new one, but that takes time obviously. I’ll probably have a working base by the end of this. I’m mid-process if you like. Just imagine me with bits of wallpaper hanging off my house and big holes in the floor and you have an idea of where I am.”
Despite the break between shows Dylan remained busy, perhaps most notably performing in the excellent Calvary. Amongst the stellar ensemble cast he plays a misanthropic businessman and appears to revel in bringing the deplorable character to life. Dylan has numerous acting credits, most famously Shaun of the Dead and Run Fatboy Run, and says he enjoyed working on such a big production; “It was a great script and it’s great to be part of an ensemble for something that has been carefully made. Anybody who’s done a bit of acting would love to do it again.”
Regardless of stand up tours or films however, to many he will always be Bernard Black (hell, even I couldn’t resist a name-drop in my introduction). Perhaps the greatest victim of this is Matt King, Peep Show’s Superhans, who is regularly asked if he wants to smoke some crack with fans (turns out its really moreish). Asking whether people similarly expect him to be Bernard gets a very simple answer.
“Yes is the answer to that question” he laughs. “It happens. People are liable to believe what they see on the television. Matt King is very funny and gives a terrific performance, but it must be a pain in the ass to have that follow your around.”
Black Books was part of an excellent era of British comedy. From Spaced and The Office through to The Mighty Boosh and Nathan Barley, Channel 4 and the BBC were regularly producing innovative and challenging comedy that, in my opinion at least, directly influenced the current generation of American writers creating the most innovative shows (Parks and Recreation, It’s Always Sunny, Rick and Morty, BoJack Horseman etc.). As someone directly involved in the period I ask what Dylan’s thoughts are.
“I think you’re probably on to something there”, he agrees. “There was a kind of energy about. A lot of good things were being made and people were aware of other people making good things. Everybody seemed to raise each other game. I guess it was a different time. Now anything that is kind of half interesting automatically gets uploaded or downloaded or iLoaded or whatever you call it, but back then it was before the real power of the internet took hold. So I suppose people find things differently now. But I agree with you. It was also the whole BritPop era as well, there seemed to be a lot of energy around making things in pop culture”.
Dylan has previously said he is working on writing a new show in a more American style, directly mentioning the excellent Louie, but in our conversation said at the moment his touring schedule is so packed “it’s impossible to do something else”.
One reason it’s so packed is that rather than just pop up and down the UK, Dylan will play anywhere in the world. He was the first Irish comedian to perform in Russia and is playing the likes of Lithuania and the Czech Republic on his current run. Some musicians say audiences who speak English as a second language often have a better understand of the meaning of lyrics because they have to pay more attention. Comedy routines largely have a more singular interpretation compared to music, but I’m curious as to whether he ever sees anything similar.
“I can’t really answer that question in the way you’ve framed it because it’s too varied”, Dylan explains. “There’s too many places, too many types of people, the language level dips and jumps and does unexpected things depending on where you are. National character also comes into it a bit. People do pay attention on the whole is what I’ve found, that’s about as certain an answer as I can give you, but you do get a sense of people actively engaging and I’ve got a huge amount of respect for them because they’re listening in a second or third or even a forth language. It’s actually a little bit like when I started out in Dublin, they were very listeny audiences. Sometimes people would be talking for quite a while before there were any big laughs. It’s not like in London, which was much more bip-bop-bip one liners, nervy and skittish comedy, whereas Dublin was a much dilatory, unspooling, talking style.”
Dylan Moran’s Off the Hook is out now on DVD and digital download.
words TOM GANE