Ireland Wins the Tour de France of Stand-Up

Abie Philbin Bowman reports on David O'Doherty Crowning as Comedy Champion of the World

At the time, it felt like Ireland had won Olympic gold. In a crowded arena, small pockets of Irish people were cheering exuberantly, as Dubliner David O'Doherty won the 2008 If.Comedy Award (formerly the Perrier) at the Edinburgh Fringe.

On reflection, a better sporting analogy is winning the Tour de France: a gruelling month-long event, held every summer, in which an overcrowded field slugs it out until someone emerges as number one. Fittingly, that puts O’Doherty on a par with one of his oft-cited heroes: DO’D is the Stephen Roche of Irish comedy.

The victory was a huge personal triumph for O’Doherty – the result of nine straight years trekking to Edinburgh every August. It was also a glorious moment to be part of the Irish comedy scene – just like with the Olympics or the Tour de France, there was a collective sense of euphoria and invincibility, despite having had absolutely no direct input into the winning performance. In an ideal world, O'Doherty would have been welcomed home on an open top bus, with thousands of fans lining O'Connell St, singing FAQ for the DO’D in unison. It's hard to tell whether the man himself would love, or hate, such an outcome.

The prize is all the sweeter because O'Doherty is based in Dublin. Of course, there's nothing wrong with a comic – be they from Cork, Cardiff, Melbourne or Manchester – relocating to London if that's where the work is. But it's good for the industry, and wonderful for the Irish comedy scene, that the ‘world's greatest comic’ chooses to practice his craft in his native Dublin.

O'Doherty's acceptance speech was uncharacteristically free of jokes or whimsy. Instead he criticised the excessive politics of this year’s Fringe. If you’re interested, I’ll try to keep this brief. O'Doherty performed his show at the Stand Comedy Club – which runs all year round, unlike many venues which cash-in during August and then abandon the city. This year, four of these bigger venues (excluding the Stand) ganged together to launch their own joint brochure, featuring many of the industry’s top names and rising stars. Some saw this as a shrewd strategy to maximise audiences at a festival which is, for most punters, overwhelmingly large (there were over 2,000 shows to choose from). To others, it was a violation of the Fringe ethos, sucking audiences away from the independent and ‘undiscovered’ venues and performances which make Edinburgh unique.

Instead of taking sides in this dispute, O'Doherty criticised the extensive media coverage of festival politics, arguing that it had nothing to do with the true purpose of the Fringe: generating great comedy. (For reasons best known to themselves, last Saturday’s Irish Times completely misrepresented O'Doherty’s speech, saying that he stuck up for the small venues… ironically adding to the precise media problem which O'Doherty was attacking).

Back to the business of great comedy, overall, it wasn't a stellar year for the Fringe, with many top acts seemingly not on their best form. I was personally underwhelmed by both Mark Watson and Reginald D. Hunter - fabulous comedians - but seemingly out of sorts, perhaps because both were playing in a 750-seater aircraft hangar rather than a more intimate room. I was even underwhelmed by O'Doherty’s show - hence its four-star review on this site. Honestly, I've seen him do better. But it’s a testament to the man that he can under-perform and still emerge as world champion: the equivalent of Usain Bolt jogging home but smashing the Olympic record.

Ok, that’s my year’s worth of sporting analogies finished.

It was a good year for the Irish in Edinburgh, however. In addition to O'Doherty's victory, plenty of other performers put on great shows. We've already singled out Eleanor Tiernan and Dead Cat Bounce, both at the Gilded Balloon. Bernard O’Shea got an almost miraculous five stars in The Scotsman, for a show that was profoundly original, and fuelled by pure nervous energy.

The pressures of performing everyday meant that I couldn't catch everybody, but I heard positive reports of Jarlath Regan, Diet of Worms, Aidan Bishop, Derek Ryan and Karl Spain. Keith Farnan took an original angle, building his set around his time in America fighting the death penalty. Maeve Higgins and Kevin Gildea displayed their usual charm and comic inventiveness. Unfortunately, I caught Dermot McMorrow on an off-day. His sublimely intellectual one-liners (think deranged maths teacher meets Jimmy Carr) – so lethal in a short set – didn't build enough momentum to sustain his audience for an hour. It was a pity, because McMorrow is marvellous when he gets going: “When I found out that I was gay, I was devastated. I had no idea how my wife would take it. But she took it like a man.”

A news junkie to the end, three of my favourite shows during the last week were unashamedly political. The first, Jamie Kilstein’s There Is No God and That's Okay was a sort of "Bill Hicks on orange juice" guide to religion in America. “Catholics believe that Jesus, their Lord and Saviour, died for their sins and is now available in cracker form”. The second was entitled “This is not a Subject for Comedy" by Ivor Dembino - a middle-aged British Jew talking about his visits to Palestine, and his subsequent e-mails from Zionist hate groups. What can I say? I like my comedy black with no sugar. Running through the Olympic schedule Dembino read out, "Football second round: Germany vs. Iran – the ultimate dilemma for a Jewish soccer fan.”

Finally, The British Ambassador's Belly Dancer was the bizarre and true story of Nadira Murray - a gorgeous Uzbek woman whose family was crushed by the post-Soviet fallout and who turned to belly-dancing to feed them. This is how she met Craig Murray – a courageous British Ambassador, ultimately dismissed for exposing the human rights violations of a strategic ally. The pair are now married and their story is simply too surreal to make up. It was a compelling performance, at the end of which -- following tales of exploitation, objectification and rape -- Nadira belly dances. It was an intensely uncomfortable moment. Her sexual allure is undeniable. And yet to acknowledge it is to identify oneself with all of the nasty, abusive men who have lusted after her. I'm not sure if that was the emotion she was trying to evoke with her dancing, but it certainly left a lasting impression. Which is more than you can say for most shows at the Fringe.