Dec
09
Just so you know, Nottingham hosted the world premiere of Reservoir Dogs.
Just so you know, the definition of ‘suburb’ in the 1668 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary was “a place of inferior debased and especially licentious habits of life”.
And, just so you know, Dara O’Briain’s first book is a mixture of similar random facts alongside various stories from the road involving him and tour manager Damon drinking, eating takeaways and drying shirts in the back of the car; all while dissecting the psyche of the Irishman’s adopted country. Thankfully, it’s also a great read.
Most of the random blasts of trivia in Tickling the English are, in fairness, trying to explain the make up of the English mindset, indeed many are thrown in there to dispel clichés as well (O’Briain’s stat-filled passages on society’s fear of kids gathering on a street corner as well as his dissection of England’s booze culture throughout the ages stand out particularly).
You’d think that with all this crammed in between descriptions of gigs gone right and others gone frustratingly bad – often due to a joke about Tayto crisps which absolutely killed in Ireland but flopped night after night in front of English audiences – such a mixed combination might make for a disjointed read. However, in reality you’d be hard pressed to put this down such is O’Briain’s superbly entertaining and very, very funny style of writing throughout the 300 pages.
The fact that you can clearly hear him delivering each line helps – such as when he’s describing the difficulty of getting a pizza delivery boy to come around the back of a venue without making it sound like some sort of sexual grooming (‘No, no, bring my pizza to the back door, I can’t go out the front. There are no lights but I’ll be waiting for you there…’).
It’s not just reams of stand up material on the page either, when gigs go wrong we hear about it, when he’s done a show on auto pilot, we hear about it, when he’s pissed off at his younger self as well TV presenters picking on live action role playing enthusiasts (or LARPs) we hear about it and the tone is far from light-hearted.
These are fleeting moments of O’Briain’s serious side in fairness, and the vast majority is just a wonderful procession of the Wicklow-born comic drawing laughs from whatever social subject he tackles, whatever town history he gets lost in or whatever part of touring minutiae that suddenly strikes him as worthy of a paragraph or two.
Great fun altogether.
Tickling the English | Dara O’Briain
Just so you know, Nottingham hosted the world premiere of Reservoir Dogs.
Just so you know, the definition of ‘suburb’ in the 1668 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary was “a place of inferior debased and especially licentious habits of life”.
And, just so you know, Dara O’Briain’s first book is a mixture of similar random facts alongside various stories from the road involving him and tour manager Damon drinking, eating takeaways and drying shirts in the back of the car; all while dissecting the psyche of the Irishman’s adopted country. Thankfully, it’s also a great read.
Most of the random blasts of trivia in Tickling the English are, in fairness, trying to explain the make up of the English mindset, indeed many are thrown in there to dispel clichés as well (O’Briain’s stat-filled passages on society’s fear of kids gathering on a street corner as well as his dissection of England’s booze culture throughout the ages stand out particularly).
You’d think that with all this crammed in between descriptions of gigs gone right and others gone frustratingly bad – often due to a joke about Tayto crisps which absolutely killed in Ireland but flopped night after night in front of English audiences – such a mixed combination might make for a disjointed read. However, in reality you’d be hard pressed to put this down such is O’Briain’s superbly entertaining and very, very funny style of writing throughout the 300 pages.
The fact that you can clearly hear him delivering each line helps – such as when he’s describing the difficulty of getting a pizza delivery boy to come around the back of a venue without making it sound like some sort of sexual grooming (‘No, no, bring my pizza to the back door, I can’t go out the front. There are no lights but I’ll be waiting for you there…’).
It’s not just reams of stand up material on the page either, when gigs go wrong we hear about it, when he’s done a show on auto pilot, we hear about it, when he’s pissed off at his younger self as well TV presenters picking on live action role playing enthusiasts (or LARPs) we hear about it and the tone is far from light-hearted.
These are fleeting moments of O’Briain’s serious side in fairness, and the vast majority is just a wonderful procession of the Wicklow-born comic drawing laughs from whatever social subject he tackles, whatever town history he gets lost in or whatever part of touring minutiae that suddenly strikes him as worthy of a paragraph or two.
Great fun altogether.
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