{"id":617991,"date":"2026-09-08T07:46:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T07:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/617991\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T07:46:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T07:46:10","slug":"dara-o-briain-the-direction-in-which-you-punch-matters-or-people-dont-warm-to-it-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/617991\/","title":{"rendered":"Dara \u00d3 Briain: \u2018The direction in which you punch matters or people don\u2019t warm to it\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dara \u00d3 Briain is still having photos taken when I arrive at the studio in west London<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A comedian requires comedy pictures, so P\u00e5l, the photographer, has him sitting on the floor holding up a scroll of the rust-coloured paper that he\u2019s using as a backdrop.<\/p>\n

It looks as if the roof is falling in on \u00d3 Briain<\/a>. He calls over to me. \u201cWe can tailor the interview to match the pictures,\u201d he says. \u201cStarting with: do you ever feel like you\u2019re trapped in a box?\u201d<\/p>\n

Shoot over, he ditches his jacket and we walk up the road to find a quiet corner in a pub. There\u2019s a new season of Mock the Week, the topical satirical panel show that ran for 17 years on BBC<\/a> Two until 2022 and has now been reborn on the free-to-air channel TLC. A roster of comedians make up two teams and compete in a faux gameshow, ostensibly to answer questions about the previous week\u2019s news, but really just to be funny.<\/p>\n

\u00d3 Briain (54) has hosted it since the start. In the first iteration, regular guests included Hugh Dennis, Frankie Boyle and Ed Byrne, but up-and-coming comics were often included too. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt became a kind of debutante\u2019s ball for people who\u2019ve gotten to the top at Edinburgh and are ready to go on screen,\u201d \u00d3 Briain explains, not without pride.<\/p>\n

When Mock the Week was on the BBC, there were accusations that the mockery was directed to the right from the left. \u00d3 Briain, who describes himself as \u201ccentre left\u201d, says that had a lot to do with what was going on in Westminster: \u201cFor the vast majority of that time, there was a Tory government \u2013 Conservative<\/a> PM after Conservative PM \u2013 so obviously we were looking at them.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he also admits there was probably something to those accusations. \u201cI don\u2019t think anyone put an argument in favour of Brexit<\/a> during the whole thing; nobody on Mock the Week was going: \u2018Well, maybe sovereignty or whatever …\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

\"Ó\u00d3 Briain with Mock the Week Regular Hugh Dennis in 2022. Photograph: PA Photo\/BBC\/Angst\/Steve Brown <\/p>\n

The show featured the right-leaning comedians Geoff Norcott and Simon Evans, but the right isn\u2019t as well represented in British comedy. \u00d3 Briain isn\u2019t sure why \u2013 perhaps because \u201cthe direction in which you punch matters or people don\u2019t warm to it\u201d, he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have seen comics do jokes about, say, nurses always asking for money, and the audience go: \u2018No, I don\u2019t think that, we\u2019re not coming with you on that one\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t mock the weak. <\/p>\n

But equally, he suggests, audiences don\u2019t like it if you\u2019re too far the other way \u2013 \u201ctoo happy-clappy\u201d.<\/p>\n

The other accusation aimed at Mock the Week was that it was vicious, mean and male \u2013 a bear pit of a show on which macho comedians elbowed each other out of the way in order to get their jibe in. Jo Brand didn\u2019t like it when she went on.<\/p>\n

Again, \u00d3 Briain says the criticism was fair. \u201cIt was generally seven men around the table: they were trying to find themselves; there were elbows.\u201d But he points out that the programme started more than two decades ago, when this was the culture of shows of this kind (see also Never Mind the Buzzcocks). \u00d3 Briain says he wouldn\u2019t have liked to be a contestant.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would have found it too staccato; I like to build up a head of steam on a piece of bullsh*t. But now it has become a lot more conversational.\u201d<\/p>\n

While there\u2019s plenty to converse about in the average week, some topics are riper for mockery than others. Trump<\/a>, for example, isn\u2019t the gift you might assume he is. <\/p>\n

\u201cParticularly Trump 2, darker Trump. There\u2019s not even the funny mistakes going on. Now, it\u2019s self-parody, so utterly ridiculous that maybe it\u2019s normalised the ridiculousness, to a certain extent. And you know, the joke\u2019s already there \u2013 what are we adding to it? It would be like doing jokes about The Simpsons.\u201d<\/p>\n

What about Keir Starmer<\/a>?<\/p>\n

\u201cAwful. He did nothing and said very little.\u201d<\/p>\n

He means as a topic of discussion, rather than as a politician, although he wasn\u2019t impressed with the way he ran the country, either. He\u2019s not sure about Andy Burnham<\/a> yet \u2013 they are still to mock one of his weeks \u2013 but he is amused by the process by which he came to power.<\/p>\n

\u201cMakerfield gets to pick the prime minister now, is that how it happens?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"DaraDara \u00d3 Briain: ‘I\u2019ve had my checkered history. But I feel it\u2019s all accounted for.’ Photograph: Nicola Tree for The Irish Times <\/p>\n

So what or who is a gift to Mock the Week? Peter Murrell and the SNP expenses scandal, he says: \u201cNot quite a victimless crime, because I guess the people who made donations to the SNP were victims. But the details were so perfect: the number of video consoles, the \u00a32,000 salt shaker [Murrell spent \u00a32,618.16 on Lalique Feuilles pepper and salt grinders], the fact Nicola Sturgeon bent over backwards to act like she didn\u2019t know her in-laws suddenly had a 30ft camper van.\u201d<\/p>\n

They got some good mileage from that in the last season \u2013 more mileage than the camper van, which drove only from the showroom to the in-laws\u2019 drive.<\/p>\n

Now, freed from the shackles of public service impartiality and scrutiny, and with more women involved, including Sara Pascoe, Maisie Adam, Laura Lexx and Angela Barnes, perhaps Mock the Week is a nicer place, even if it has many fewer viewers (a little more than 1 million when repeats are included) than the 3-million-plus it averaged in its BBC peak.<\/p>\n

\u00d3 Briain wasn\u2019t meant to be a comedian. He studied mathematics and theoretical physics at University College Dublin in the early 1990s. He says he was a shy and self-conscious teenager, but pushed himself to join the debating society at UCD. During one debate, he told a joke: \u201cIt got a laugh, and a round of applause, and I remember this whoosh of adrenaline and me going: oh hello!\u201d<\/p>\n

He still feels that whoosh, although the high isn\u2019t so high and it might take a two-hour show, rather than one joke, to get there. But he loves the work and it takes him to cool places such as Athens, Barcelona and Stockholm (as well as Chatham, Dorking and Leicester). His two most recent tours have been less about the gags, more about the storytelling \u2013 and more personal.<\/p>\n

\u2018We are currently cool, but I think people are getting a bit tired of it\u2019<\/p>\n

Born in Bray, Co Wicklow, \u00d3 Briain was adopted into what he has described as \u201ca stable home\u201d and had a happy childhood. A few years ago, he decided to find out about his biological parents.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe plan wasn\u2019t that it should be a show, it was just this thing I should investigate, because of normal human emotions. I always knew there was this story waiting to be found out, and then the impetus was that none of us are getting younger. I know of people who have found parents and then met them in a nursing home and they\u2019ve had Alzheimer\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n

He realised the story wasn\u2019t only about him after seeing the film Philomena. \u201cI came out of the cinema with a sudden appreciation that this is actually not my story at all, I\u2019m only a baby in it, but there\u2019s a woman who got pregnant and went on this journey,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s her story and I should probably at the very least make contact in order to close that circle for her and let her know it was great and I found a lovely family and all that stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was hard \u2013 bureaucratically, emotionally \u2013 but he found her and they met up. It was awkward and strange. He got a bunch of new siblings. He told the story in his show So … Where Were We?, which won best tour at the Chortle awards in 2023.<\/p>\n

His next show, Re:Creation, which he\u2019s been touring across Europe, tells the story of trying to track down his biological father. No spoilers (there are some dates left, plus it\u2019s on Amazon Prime), but it contains less sadness and anger than the previous set.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a bit of a romp, with a twist towards the end that is delightful to deliver. Not quite The Sixth Sense, but kind of a gasp moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Dara \u00d3 Briain: \u2018I\u2019ve willingly taken on a 600% increase in family members\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The problem now is what to do next. \u201cBoth stories just kind of emerge in a very tellable form. There\u2019s no way of doing a third, no trilogy. Even as I\u2019m doing it, enjoying telling the story, my head is going: \u2018Yeah, next time, you\u2019re going to actually have to do some work, write some jokes, because you\u2019re not going to be gifted another parent to find, there isn\u2019t another great family reveal\u2019,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Well, there is one possibility, surely. Maybe not a parent … He laughs. \u201cYes, the perfect thing would be a knock on the door and there\u2019s a 25-year-old going: \u2018I think …\u2019 And I would go: \u2018Thank you so much!\u2019 Because this would be the only way you could extend the trilogy \u2013 if I was the father of a child given up for adoption.\u201d <\/p>\n

It\u2019s not going to happen, though.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve done the audit, run it backwards in my head going: was there any situation that could have \u2026 ?\u201d<\/p>\n

He adds quickly: \u201cI mean, I\u2019ve had my checkered history. But I feel it\u2019s all accounted for.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"DaraDara \u00d3 Briain on the Mindfield stage with Blindboy at Electric Picnic 2025. Photograph: Alan Betson\/The Irish Times<\/p>\n

His TV career started as a children\u2019s presenter on RT\u00c9, while he was doing his first standup gigs on the Irish comedy circuit. He came to prominence hosting the topical panel show Don\u2019t Feed the Gondolas from 1997 to 2001. His big break on the other side of the Irish Sea came in 2003, when he hosted The Live Floor Show on BBC Two, which led to appearances on Have I Got News for You.<\/p>\n

Since making his debut as Mock the Week\u2019s host in 2005, \u00d3 Briain has presented just about everything on television. Alongside the panel shows and the comedy, his interest in maths and physics continued. He has presented Stargazing Live from Jodrell Bank observatory with Prof Brian Cox; his hobby is astrophotography, which he does from his garden in London (\u201cyou can filter out all the light\u201d); and he\u2019s had many pops at bad science (hello, Gillian McKeith!) in his comedy.<\/p>\n

Even when chatting, he\u2019ll borrow analogies from science. He says X, formerly known as Twitter, has become a black hole: \u201cIt\u2019s got sucked into this thing and created so much density that it\u2019s actually going to collapse under its own gravity.\u201d (He has abandoned the platform.) <\/p>\n

The popularity of panel shows? They have their moments. \u201cIt\u2019s like this graph of an extinction event: it goes back down again, but it never fully eliminates a small number of hard\u2011shelled animals who survive each time \u2013 the cockroaches who are the comedians at the bottom, never fully eliminated because they\u2019re cheap and people like them, so they\u2019ll come back.\u201d<\/p>\n

His own career, meanwhile, is more of a sine wave: \u201cIt goes up and down, but carries on.\u201d Or is it a damped oscillation? <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t pay attention, it gets smaller and smaller, asymptotically, until there\u2019s only a tiny little vibration right at the very end and I\u2019m sitting in an olive grove in Spain going: \u2018Buenos dias\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll know, if you\u2019ve seen him on stage or on TV, that \u00d3 Briain\u2019s delivery is superfast. Well, it doesn\u2019t slow down over a quiet orange juice and lemonade. When he sets off on something, he\u2019s like a rocket in space. I fire little thrusters (chip in with the odd question) in an attempt to steer the ship, but when something has that much momentum sometimes you just have to run with it.<\/p>\n

We go to many other places \u2013 solar eclipses, the World Cup, what to do if there\u2019s a medical emergency in the audience, Arsenal\u2019s transfer window, Blankety Blank, whether or not it\u2019s cool to be Irish in London, but there isn\u2019t space here … oh, go on then, just that last one. The answer is yes, but again it\u2019s sinusoidal. \u201cWe are currently cool, but I think people are getting a bit tired of it, so probably it\u2019s time for someone else to be cool for a while.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether he\u2019s cool or not, 90 minutes with \u00d3 Briain is eye-opening, exhausting and delightful. He\u2019s still talking when he gets into the car that has come to fetch him.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s something about Melania Trump, although I\u2019m not sure if it\u2019s the documentary or the woman. And then it\u2019s too late when I realise: I forgot to ask if he ever feels as if he\u2019s trapped in a box. \u2013 The Guardian<\/p>\n

Mock the Week returns to TLC on September 13th at 9pm. Re:Creation is on Amazon Prime<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dara \u00d3 Briain is still having photos taken when I arrive at the studio in west London. A…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":617992,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[85530,1578,57092,321,61793,132894,969,93,61,60,1194,99,6085],"class_list":["post-617991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-andy-burnham","tag-bbc","tag-brexit","tag-celebrities","tag-conservative-and-unionist-party","tag-dara-o-briain","tag-donald-trump","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-keir-starmer","tag-london","tag-rte"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=617991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/617992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}