Des Bishop spends more time in New York than in Dublin these days, but he wants us to know he is still an Irish comic. It’s only since the pandemic that he’s really been spending more time in the United States, he says as we chat over Zoom.
“Because I have an American accent, people are immediately, like, ‘Oh, he’s not an Irish comic any more ... Now you’re an American comic.’ That really bugs me. Guys. I’ve been here since 1997. It’s quite funny how quickly then people are just, like, ‘Oh, he’s over there now.’”
Bishop never intended to fully move to New York, he says. He had been “bicoastal” for some time, spending much of his year in the US, touring and spending time with family. When the pandemic broke out he chose to spend it in the United States, because he has a house by the ocean there and the weather was better, “but I never made a decision to leave. The pandemic happened and then life happened during the pandemic, and then suddenly I’m, like, ‘Oh s**t, I live more in New York now.’”
When he says that “life happened during the pandemic” he means that he met and married the US comedian and reality-TV star Hannah Berner. We’ll get back to that in a bit.
Bishop is warm, engaged and engaging. He has always been a comedian who is interested in identity. An Irish American who was shipped off to an Irish boarding school in his troubled teens, he mined, in his early comedy, being a fish-out-of-water American grappling with Irish culture. Now, in the context of living more in the US, he’s very conscious of how Irish he is.
“Since I started doing comedy all the people that helped me, they’re all Irish. I was an integral part of the comedy scene. I ran the International [Comedy Club, in Dublin] for years. My core group of people that I’ve been with from the beginning are all Irish. I’m an Irish comic with a New York accent.”
It was with the drama society at University College Cork, where he studied English and history, that he got his first stage experience, but it was thanks to the comedian (and former Bosco presenter) Frank Twomey, who hosted nights at Gorbys, a club in the city, that he started to do stand-up.
“God rest him. He died last year,” Bishop says. “He pushed me into it. He was just, like, ‘You’ve got to try it.’ I used to get up for the joke competition ... I got up one time, but before I told my joke I was improvving on something that just happened to me in the toilet, and when I got off stage he was, like, ‘That’s it. You’re doing a show in two weeks.’ Honestly, whether I would have got into it or not without him I can never say. Life is random.”
What was doing his first comedy set like? “Absolutely terrifying,” Bishop says. “I’d done plenty of drama-society shows, and I loved being on stage ... But what the f**k was I doing up there? I was clueless. I literally turned to my friend Ian and said, ‘I truly understand the expression “sh**ting yourself” now,’ because I literally was on the precipice. I viscerally understood the term.”
Bishop thinks he was lucky. Ireland was undergoing a bit of a comedy boom in the wake of Father Ted, and he had a built-in shtick.
“I was one of the first guys doing the fish-out-of-water stuff. TikTok now is riddled with American students that come to Ireland and they’re making similar observations to what I was making back in the 1990s and the 2000s. I’m not diminishing them and I’m not diminishing myself ... But there were some easy laughs to be had.
“My early stand-up, it was very Irish observational, but it was virtually useless outside of Ireland. So I had that sort of dichotomy of really doing well in Ireland and then having no idea what I wanted to say outside of Ireland in those early years ... 9/11 was the first time where I started to talk about more international stuff, and I did Edinburgh. That gave me a bit of confidence to be, like, ‘Okay, I’m not just talking about Ireland here.’”
Bishop began making TV series that involved embedding himself in different communities. In The Des Bishop Work Experience he took on minimum-wage jobs. In Joy in the Hood he encouraged nascent comedians from marginalised communities. On In the Name of the Fada he learned Irish in the Gaeltacht. “That format of turning an experience into stand-up was the beginning of something,” he says. “It kind of guided me into a different way of thinking about stand-up.”
He was always open about his personal life, about being a recovering alcoholic (he drank throughout his teens) and about dealing with testicular cancer, but it was with a show called My Dad Was Nearly James Bond that he broke ground. It was about his father giving up on his acting dreams.
Bishop wrote it while his father was sick and dying. He created it with the input of the theatre director Conall Morrison, who gave him “the confidence to sit with moments that need to be sat with ... That show definitely comes from watching [the actor and memoirist] Spalding Gray and going, ‘I can do something like that.’”
A couple of months into the pandemic I was, like, ‘Man, I needed this.’ The pandemic wasn’t easy for me, but it was quite transformative to have that enforced solitude, being put into this modern monastery, to just be with myself
— Des Bishop
He thinks there’s something useful in shows that use comedy to explore serious issues. “I’ve been through two parental deaths now,” Bishop says. “I know about the grief of losing a parent. I don’t know about the grief of losing a spouse. I don’t know what it’s like to lose a child. There’s a lot of essential human experience I haven’t experienced, but I know about those two things, and when I hear someone talk about that in a way that’s interesting, I just f**king love it and I appreciate it. I think, Oh God, I needed that today.
“So I’m very happy when I finish a show like My Dad Was Nearly James Bond, and people feel it and they’re entertained and they’re part of it. It is so satisfying. You think, Why do we do this if it’s f**king pointless? This isn’t pointless.”
Bishop wasn’t sure he’d do that sort of show again, but after his mother died, in 2019, he put together one called Mia Mamma. “I remember in the early stages thinking, How the f**k am I back here again, with the trial and error of when it’s too dark or when it’s too light? I was basically understanding grief while trying to joke about understanding grief. So I was learning on the fly there, which was also part of that show.”
Is it cathartic to work on something so personal? “There’s probably something slightly psychologically unhealthy about needing to work through your s**t with an audience.” He laughs. “But I will say one thing. I was on my way to the Pavilion Theatre in Dún Laoghaire [and] I had to pull over because I was overwhelmed with a mixture of sadness, grief and anxiety. And I had to acknowledge at that moment, ‘F**k, man, this is a lot.’
“I never felt the grief with my dad like I felt with my mother. I was literally, like, ‘Can I handle this right now?’ I was close to losing it. I got a little sick to my stomach ... I don’t know how much catharsis there is, but I know that it was intense.”
And then, just as that show was starting, the pandemic happened and everything stopped. “A couple of months into the pandemic I was, like, ‘Man, I needed this.’ The pandemic wasn’t easy for me, but it was quite transformative to have that enforced solitude, being put into this modern monastery, to just be with myself.
[ Des Bishop: ‘The last time my mother spoke was to say sorry’Opens in new window ]
“After having had the intensity of the experience of touring Mia Mamma quite soon after my mom died, I was forced to literally, really be with it. All in all, I would say maybe there was some catharsis [in the show] but, actually, the better catharsis is to just feel.”
In the midst of all that he met Berner, who is 33. It’s a very modern love story. They followed each other on Instagram. “I thought, Well, I’ll shoot my shot. So I was, like, ‘Hey, you’re out east ... You want to meet for coffee?’” Bishop says. “It was about a 10-minute drive to Sag Harbor, where we were going to get a bite to eat. And I knew by the time we parked that car – I didn’t know I was going to marry her but I knew that she was a winner.”
They married a year and a half later because, as Bishop, who’ll turn 50 this year, says, “I’m not a spring chicken.” They’d connected instantly. “For me it was actually overwhelming. It’s hard to describe. It was just a transformative experience, my mom dying and then the pandemic and the solitude, so I was open to it in a way that maybe I hadn’t been before.”
Berner appeared on three seasons of the American reality show Summer House, on Bravo. Did he know about her TV career? “I remember from following her [on Instagram] she just started posting these clips,” he says. “‘Oh, is this some sort of MTV show?’ I wasn’t even aware of Bravo as the institution that it is. I didn’t know that that was the reality channel.”
She now concentrates on comedy; the couple also host a podcast together, Berner Phone. Bishop says Berner has been a big influence on him, particularly around how to operate online. “I still had a pain in my hole with the way the industry had changed, so I had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the modern era ... She was a huge motivator. She was on my ass all the time. ‘You’ve got to post clips.’”
I can’t live on the extremes. I’m not going to pander to [the extremes]. But really, commercially, that’s not the way to go. Commercially it’s really a time to pander
— Des Bishop
Why was he resistant? Bishop laughs. “I got into stand-up for live performance,” he says. “I did TV, but the TV was always really to gain popularity so that more people came to my stand-up. I wanted to sell tickets. I wanted people to see my shows. I never wanted to edit, and I never wanted to set up a camera and I never wanted to think in the way that you have to think as a content creator ... I just didn’t expect the industry to shift the way that it did.”
Years of gigging in the United States and of people responding to his online material mean Bishop’s audience in the US is growing steadily, but he’s looking forward to his upcoming Irish gigs and the familiar “warmth” of Irish audiences.
What are the differences? Irish comics and audiences value storytelling, Bishop says; Americans prefer speed. “I watch my stuff from back in the day and I’m, like, ‘Wow, I am really taking my time getting to a punchline.’” He laughs.
Another thing Bishop doesn’t have to think about in Ireland, he says, is being divisive. “I have no problem speaking openly about my dislike and lack of understanding for Trump’s popularity, but I’m also aware that people can have these overly emotional responses if they find out that you’re one side or the other.
“I don’t hide it. I make the right amount of jokes. I don’t shove it down their throats, because I know that they’re not in the mood for that ... What was great about [the late comedian] Bill Hicks was that he told American people things that they’d never heard before, and that was challenging. Whereas now the world is so divided that they’re not going to hear me. They’re just going to shut off.”
Bihsop is surprised at the size of the backlash against progressive issues. “Imagine the audacity of traditionally marginalised groups just trying to grab a touch of power for themselves, just a f**king hint of power, and the slapback it got,” he says.
“It’s really taken me by surprise, actually, how quickly things have shifted. And it’s frightening ... Online and in the media, it feels insanely divisive. The way Maga talks about liberals online, it really feels like the type of division that creates the worst moments in history ...
“Nobody wants the normal way that we used to have discourse about issues. It just doesn’t sell. They want to hear in strong terms what reaffirms what they believe. I’m just a classic centre. I’m a classic 49-year-old dude. I have my biases, but I also can understand – even if I disagree – aspects of people on the other side of my centrist beliefs.
“I can’t live on the extremes. I’m not going to pander to [the extremes]. But really, commercially, that’s not the way to go. Commercially it’s really a time to pander.”
We talk a little about hugely popular American online comedians such as Theo Von and Joe Rogan, who’ve embraced right-wing talking points and been embraced by Maga in return. “There was probably a moment in time where you could almost understand people’s complaints about censorship and free speech,” Bishop says. “I think they were exaggerating, but there were moments where I could admit that there was probably a tight atmosphere around what you could say ...
“But then it got this influx of Maga energy – people saying, ‘You can’t f**king say anything any more,’ and all these people are in their comments saying, ‘You’re the one that says stuff that nobody’s allowed to say,’ and they believed it.
“I don’t have a problem with their popularity. What I have a problem with is that if you really were a comic that’s not afraid to say the things you can’t say, you would challenge your audience at least a bit about some of the Maga stuff,” Bishop says.
“But they don’t challenge. They pander. They went from a moment of challenging an element of the status quo to pandering 100 per cent ... There’s so much money in picking a side.”
Does Bishop get many of Berner’s fans at his gigs? “I would say 10 per cent of the crowd,” he says. “When the Hannah fans cheer, the pitch is three octaves higher ... It’s good to have a diversity in the crowd. I don’t just want it to be 40-year-old white people at my shows.
“Every now and then, if Hannah goes to a cool city, I’ll open up for her, and when I perform to her crowd it’s very different. It’s mostly women. Most of the men are gay except a couple of boyfriends that were dragged along, and so you have to know that you’re playing to a specific audience. That’s fun too. You know that you’re in the middle of a niche.”
There’s nothing wrong with a good niche, Bishop says. His American audience is much more diverse these days, but in the past he had predominantly Irish audiences at his American gigs.
“I’d do Boston and I’d have some random Boston guy opening for me, and he’d come off and he’d be, like, ‘I found it hard to get them.’ I was, like, ‘Bro, you’re not in Boston, you’re [basically] in Dublin. Don’t feel bad. They don’t even know what you’re talking about.’”
Des Bishop is touring Ireland until March 15th; dates include the 3Olympia Theatre, in Dublin, February 26th-28th, plus shows in Limerick, Cork, Belfast and Galway
