Interview with Dylan Moran

This is an extended version of my interview with Dylan Moran published in the Sun-Herald.

Dylan Moran is very serious when it comes to words. “I really miss the way language is treated. Because whether it’s Obama or a taxi driver we’ve all got something to say, we’ve got a vernacular, a spin on the words,” he says.

“But now everyone’s twittering. These new technologies, they’re a distraction. I mean, doesn’t Twitter limit what you can say to 140 characters?” he asks me as he sips on a lemon, lime and bitters in the gardens of his Sydney hotel.

The Irish comedian, actor, writer and star of the famous Black Books comedy series is in Australia on a tour of his latest stand up show What It Is. When you meet Moran you can see a bit of the cynical Bernard Black character in his demeanour but it’s his calm awareness which is most striking.

“One thing I’ve noticed about language isn’t just you learn from the older generation but you cling to the younger generation and I’ve noticed it come out in my comedy. Sometimes I’ll just say ‘thing’,” he says with a County Meath inflection making it sound more like ‘ting’.

“Thing will refer to half of what I’m talking about – ‘get the thing, where’s the thing, it was beside the thing’”.

“And even ‘like’ has crept into my language and it used to drive me insane. I’d be sitting next to somebody of a certain age - and this sounds like an old bastard thing to say - but I can’t hear anything else except for the word ‘like’. I end up counting them and someone will come up to you and I’ll just say ‘nineteen!’ And they’ll be ‘nineteen what?’

“They said ‘like’ 19 times!”

“And it’s not just localisms or Dublinisms or Irishisms."

"My father once told me ... he was in the Aran Islands, these small islands off the coast and he was in this very very quiet pub.”

“And there was nothing stirring, there was dead silence, just the ticking of a clock on the wall and he said to the barman ‘for want of passing the time or pleasantries, do you ever get busy in here?’”

“And the barman, who was cleaning a glass, didn’t even look up and he said, ‘What difference would it make in a hundred years?”

“It’s a totally different take on how to spend your time.”

“But I’m not talking about poetic language. I’m just talking about the ordinary discourse, the chat and the value accorded to it - it’s immense in Ireland which I think it isn’t in Britain.”

“Australians are pretty good at passing the time of the day. I mean, I’ve laughed out loud at some of the ordinary chat and the slang of Australia – it’s very rich.”

“Irish culture though is in the mash-up of European culture anyway – and touring [theatre] companies would one time be very important in Ireland and even do Shakespeare in the hills.”

For Moran who immersed himself in the plays of Irish writers Samuel Beckett, George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde as a teenager and sees Jackie Mason as a comic master, words are very important to his work and his Irish identity.

“Ireland is such a talky culture,” he says. “You walk into an Irish pub and it’s a huge drone of everybody talking and the only way to shut someone up is to tell a better story. So for me it was a kind of training in a way.”

“I mean, you go to the pub to drink a pint, but its about the talk. That was one of the things when I started out, because that’s the last thing you’d want to see when you walked into a pub – a big television there – or a stage with a microphone.”

“When I was in Ireland and started doing this [in the early 1990’s] there just wasn’t a tradition of stand-up. You would have had story tellers, the fireside chat and that tradition is very strong,” he explains. “But there was no stand-up because it was redundant. So then I caught the boat and moved to London,” he says.

“Because there’s one club in Dublin where you cut your teeth and there’s 15 to 20 comedians in the front row, it’s no joke.”

“So then, if you wanted to do it, you had to get on the boat where there’s a hundred clubs in London and that’s how you can making your living doing stand-up.”

“But it’s quite different now. Everyone has that TV-presenter type profile now, which I never had and they are now a jack of all trades in media things, they present things, they do things and they appear on panel shows – you know – they’re like a talking head.”

Since his move to the UK not very much has changed for Moran aside from the size of the venues he plays. After twenty years on the circuit he still just tours with a minimal operation with a producer and publicist.

“It’s a pretty lo-fi operation – just the microphone, lights and me. This isn’t Starlight Express or A Streetcar Named Desire – it’s just words and a guy” he says.

“But that’s by no means limiting. I went to see Jackie Mason and he’s what 70 years old and I went to see him for his words. What he does with all his Yiddish and his rhythm – it just makes me laugh.”

“He’s a master at what he does. He’s one of the greats and it’s amazing what he does physically. I mean he’s not an athletic guy – he’s a keg to look at – a keg with a wig – and he just makes you laugh with what he does. You can be ten rows back and he just makes you laugh.”

“I saw Tom Waits recently in Edinburgh and I know its music but its very theatrical and his set-up has a bit of a rig and effects.”

“And he loves all that Weimar, Kurt Weill stuff with all the old rock … all that Trubadour Tradition with some old amplifiers hanging up in some mesh.

“And he stands there all hirsute, hanging off the microphone bellowing at you. It was very effective … I just wish I could hear him better.

For Moran it’s not only words which are serious - it’s also comedy.

“Australian audiences are quite good. Some audiences in London have that crossed armed feel – come and entertain me feel – the ideal audience is one which is just open.”

“The most difficult thing in comedy is to occupy the present tense. It’s such an important facet to be fully actively present - but if you’re minds on other things or you’re worried, you’re depleting your possibilities for that show,” he says.

“When I write I want to be create precise description of things but I don’t want to be over written. You know a mile off when dialogue sounds staged. You don’t want that and it’s very important you don’t get that.”

“I once saw this review of a Ben Elton show who was so impressed with the ad lib, and he went back and saw it again and saw the exact same ad lib and that’s a basic theatrical skill – to be able to pass of what seems like improvisation as being in the moment – technically that’s very difficult.”

“I improvise – and its part of my limitation. I wouldn’t be able to go on the road with a set text. I wouldn’t get any relief - all I’ve got is me and I get bored of me.”

“You have to break it up a bit. I couldn’t bear to know what I was going to do every night – it would kill me. I mean I have a structure and it’s like a little Lego set you construct with the audience.”

“Each night you’re turning all your switches on to put the material over and to get it across to people and beam it into every single person there as much as you possibly can,” he says.

“You live and die by your last gig.”