The Apres Match comic is taking on his first live solo show
Risteárd Cooper photographed near where he grew up in Ranelagh, Dublin. Photo: Frank McGrath
The image of Risteárd Cooper in a crazy wig making the nation heave with laughter on RTÉ’s Apres Match in the late 1990s is so deeply ingrained in my memory that it’s a shock at first to hear him talk about death and mortality and inner pain.
But he does it with what can only be described as powerful intimacy. This arguably also feeds into why he has been such a compelling actor on stage and screen over the years – in everything from Brian Friel’s The Yalta Game for The Gate Theatre in Sydney to Frank McGuinness’s Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme at The Abbey, Delicious on Sky TV or in Quiz on ITV.