by Olaf Tyaransen

Ardal O’Hanlon only spent a total of about eight months of his lengthy career acting in Father Ted, but it’s for his role as the hapless Fr. Dougal McGuire that he inarguably remains best known. He’s not complaining about it, mind, but the now 49-year-old, Monaghan-born, comic still hasn’t gone to TedFest.

“I’ve never been, no,” he admits. “But I do this joke, which is kind of a rip-off. I say that I went to TedFest and when I was there I entered into a Father Dougal lookalike competition… and I only came third! It’s kind of a joke, but it’s something that really did happen to Maurice Gibb who, as you probably know, was a big Father Ted fan.”

Indeed, the late Bee Gee was such a fan of the now classic sitcom that he was reportedly buried with a complete box set. “I have that on good authority from Robin Gibb’s wife. She told me that story about him entering into the Maurice Gibb lookalike competition in Miami and only coming third. It’s just another example of how quickly people forget.

I would never be tempted to go to TedFest, to be honest with you, for a couple of reasons,” he continues. “First of all, I don’t know what I could contribute to it. I think I’d be a disappointment to the real diehard fans because I’m not really Father Dougal, that was just a character. Secondly, I always felt it was really important to move on as quickly as possible, even though that’s what a lot of people know me for, which is fine. To keep your sanity and everything else, you have to look ahead and not dwell on the past.”

Post-Father Ted, the happily married father-of-three has kept himself incredibly busy. Something of a renaissance man, O’Hanlon is an occasional guest on UK comedy shows (Live at the Apollo, Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow, etc.), has appeared in several films and TV shows (Flying Saucer Rock ‘n’ Roll, My Hero, The Butcher Boy), and published a well-received novel (The Talk of the Town).

Stand=up remains his first love, however. Since founding Ireland’s first comedy club, The Comedy Cellar (situated above Dublin’s International Bar), alongside Barry Murphy and Kevin Gildea in the early ‘90s, the award-winning stand-up has continued to make paying punters laugh all over the world.

Even so, he maintains that there’s something special about Irish audiences. “I think you could describe Irish audiences as being generally more ‘over-friendly’. They feel more part of the show than a typical English audience. When you go around England, audiences tend to be very conventional and know their place; they sit there and enjoy the show and react according to what amuses them. In Ireland, I think it’s just more casual. The whole approach to comedy has developed in a slightly different way.

“There’s more interaction between performer and audience. The audience is more vocal. There’s a touch of restlessness about an Irish audience. The attention span wouldn’t be as good as elsewhere.”

Given this, he tends to favour a looser approach to his performances on Irish soil. “I would definitely approach a gig in Ireland slightly differently than I would in the UK,” he says. “You’re more on your toes in Ireland. You kind of have to be more lively, more on the front foot. You mightn’t do material as ‘crafted’ as you would in the UK. I think there’s much more appreciation for a good one-liner over there. People like Milton Jones and Tim Vine might not work as well in Ireland as they would in the UK.”

Where does he stand on hecklers? “I have no real issue with them,” he shrugs. “It’s not as big a deal as some people make out. The actual classic heckle followed by classic putdown isn’t really a big thing. What you might get is a disruptive influence that you might have to stamp on and step out of your persona for a moment or two. It’s just never really been a huge deal in my experience. You’d certainly welcome interaction. You ask questions and you want to engage to some degree. At the same time you don’t want the show to be disrupted.

“There’s different kinds of comedy, as you know yourself. There are a lot of performers whose entire stock and trade is banter with the audience and then there are others – and I would classify myself as part of this group – where you develop your material, you write it out, you hone it, you revise it, you’re deliberate, and you have some semblance of structure to the show. You want to stick to that as much as possible, but you have to be very flexible. You play to the audience in front of you. You can’t play to the imaginary audience in your head.”

What kind of show will he be bringing to the Comedy Carnival in Galway?

“Well I’ve never really had titles for my shows. It’s hard enough to come up with jokes, never mind fucking titles! It’s kind of a work in progress, really. I’ve been trying to develop a new show over the last six months with a view to touring it next year. There’s a lot of new material but no real particular themes, except maybe a slight ‘ ageing’ theme in it. It’s mostly just jokes and funny twists on old themes.”

Speaking of ageing, O’Hanlon will turn 50 just a few weeks before he comes to Galway. Will that birthday be a big deal to him?

“Not really. I think there’s a natural introspection when you approach milestones like that even though you don’t feel any different or look significantly different. I think societal convention dictates that you have a look inwards and you decide where you’re at in terms of your life and your career and everything. So, yeah, I suppose there has been a bit of that, but no major conclusions as of yet.”

So no impending midlife crisis then?

“I hate terms like ‘midlife crisis’,” he sighs. “I just think they’re really, really pathetic. I was always an old fella, from the age of 20, so I probably had a midlife crisis around the age of 25 or something. I got it out of my system quite early. But you know, I probably have gone down that road a little bit in terms of doing things I wouldn’t have done 10, 20 years ago, like hiking, rafting and stuff like that, which is really stupid. So I kind of have strayed into that territory a little bit, thinking life is running out and I should do things that I haven’t done.”

So what’s left on Ardal O’Hanlon’s bucket list?

“I actually do stuff about this in my show and I’m finding it really difficult to come up with things, whether it’s due a lack of imagination or not, I don’t know. It’s not as if I’ve done everything. I quite like lying around a lot of the time, as well. A lot of people want to swim with a dolphin and they want to get a tattoo. I want to tattoo a dolphin. That would be the last thing on my bucket list… but apparently you’re not allowed to do that.”

Ardal plays The Spiegeltent, Eyre Square on Wednesday October 21st. See here for more details.