There’s a logical connection between Tommy Tiernan, the
Irish comedian who opened his three-week run in the Little Theater
on Wednesday, and John Cleese, the British comedian who will
perform his one-man show in Royce Hall on Saturday. Sure,
they’re both from small islands adjacent to the European
continent, and sure, they’re both performing on campus as
part of UCLA Live programming, but no self-respecting comedian
would accept such a dull parallel.
Instead, as most contemporary comedic connections do, the
intersection runs straight through Eddie Izzard.
“He’s the next leap from Monty Python,”
Tiernan said of Izzard. “If Monty Python is a frog,
(Izzard’s) the next lily pad they would have landed on after
“˜Life of Brian.'”
If Cleese, famous for his involvement with Monty Python, led to
Izzard, then Izzard, in a way, leads to Tiernan. The Irish comedian
is performing as one half of UCLA Live’s British/Irish Comedy
Invasion, which of course was arranged by the same media company,
WestBeth Entertainment, which first brought Izzard to perform in
the United States.
It’s all a bit complicated, but it’s there. Sort of.
When asked about performing just a few-minutes’ walk from
Cleese on Saturday, Tiernan said the same thing fellow Irishman
Colin Farrell said when first asked about how he dealt with
intimidation from Hollywood big shots when he first came to Los
Angeles.
“Fuck him,” Tiernan said in his best brogue, thicker
than a pint of Guinness.
The statement fits. An aggressive comedian, Tiernan employs tone
and energy in his act in such a way that it sometimes resembles a
fire-and-brimstone Catholic sermon.
“I’d love to be laid-back and supremely witty, but
it’s not my nature,” he said.
If you’re not expecting it, his aggressive tone can
enhance his material to the point of offense. In a largely Catholic
Ireland, he’s been criticized and even banned from a TV show
for blasphemy. And 15-20 percent of his current show,
“Loose,” is still based on religion.
“The role of the jester is to upset everybody,”
Tiernan said. “The best way to serve an age is to betray it,
which means you say all the things that are supposed to be unsaid,
and you see what happens.”
But audiences can expect more than just a few Jesus jokes in
Tiernan’s potentially offensive material. One joke he’s
used in the past about Christ’s crucifixion pins fault
squarely on the shoulders of Jews merely as a setup for Tiernan to
joke that “it wasn’t the Mexicans.” Given his
history in Ireland, he’s not worried about how such jokes
will go over in Los Angeles.
“I’ve done that bit with a lot of Jewish people in
the audience, and it adds an element of danger and excitement and
laughter,” Tiernan said. “There are issues in America
that people tread very carefully around. People are weary of being
offended, but I will go head-on into it with a mischievous
glee.”
In that way, Tiernan resembles another famous British comedian
of sorts: Puck in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
Though Tiernan would correctly classify himself as much more
vulgar, his playfulness on stage can recall Shakespeare’s
sprite. Like Puck, Tiernan sets up scenarios and enjoys watching
them play out, whatever the consequences. Words Tiernan uses to
describe his act ““ reckless, energetic, creative, spontaneous
““ could easily describe Puck as well. Puck’s last
speech, in which he apologizes to the audience if the play has
offended anyone, reinforces the “mischievous glee” on
which Tiernan relies.
Puck’s spontaneity carries over into Tiernan’s act.
The comedian doesn’t prepare his material too heavily before
any performance, opting instead to use his presence on stage to
force himself to be funny. Knowing that an audience is watching
him, Tiernan thinks on the spot to flesh out his routines, having
only a small idea or association in his head to provide direction.
The method makes performances more entertaining for Tiernan and
audiences alike: Tiernan doesn’t get bored, and the audience
can’t have any idea what he’s going to say next
because, usually, he doesn’t either.
“When you’re on a roller coaster, you’re not
entirely sure where it’s going to go, and that’s what
makes it exciting,” Tiernan said, encompassing both his own
and his audiences’ perspectives. “I’ll have an
idea and I’ll talk around it. It’s the George Bush
approach.”