Dave Allen

So I go through my life story, but relating it into the kind of jokes that I was hearing at that time in my life.

Right from the age of five, the first joke I remember being told through my childhood, listening to Dave Allen on television and going to school and telling the jokes that I heard him tell.

And so that's what it is.

There's this thing in Ireland called a Shanna Key.

You are right and I've always said that the storytelling tradition in Ireland is far closer to the surface there than it is in Britain.

We don't really have anything like that in the last 200 years or so.

Dave Allen was a huge influence on me for that reason and the Irish disposition of that I talk about in the show.

about how that influenced me because when I was in my late teens, I worked on building sites a lot.

You have people like George Carlin, Lenny Bruce in the UK.

You had, you know, Irish comedians like Dave Allen and later, you know, Billy Connolly, people like this.

who would come out and do material that they had written themselves, observational comedy, political comedy, personal comedy, you know, and it became a huge taboo to steal each other's jokes.

That was not, that became a huge taboo in our industry.

say.

You've spoken previously about the influence of Dave Allen, of course, the Irish comedian on your work.

What was it about his style that made an impression on you? And do you see something distinctive in Ireland's

storytelling traditions? For sure.

I mean, I listen to, I talk about Dave Allen in this current show and about, and, you know, mentions, talk about Irish comedy and humour.

I always think that Irish, it feels to me like the mother tongue of comedy in some ways.

And it has influenced the American accent, which is also so good for stand-up comedy.

And Dave Allen, I love, I always loved from a kid, and this is what I say in the show, And I love that he brings a sort of a sophistication to something that is really quite simple.

I think there was a series of those from memory.

Or we could now play Dave Allen's religious jokes.

Yes,

maybe.

So they must know what we really want to hear.

Yes.

How brilliant was the late, great Dave Allen? What a wonderful storyteller.

He'd sit there on the chair with his whiskey and cigarette in his hand and just tell stories.

And they're just really, really old gags.

And I reference lots of, uh, lots of, uh, Dave Allen and Irish friends and the stories that we shared when I was a, a younger bloke working in building sites and so on.

So it's got a very clear Irish connection actually.

I'm surprised even when I was writing it how much that that came through.

So I don't wanna become one of those old people who sort of trashes what young people are into, 'cause it's just as valid for them-

Mm

... as, as Billy Connolly was for you, or Dave Allen was for me, you know?

Mm.

So I'm interested to know what that'll go like, uh, in, in Ireland itself.

And Dave Allen was a great influence on me-

Ah

... uh, right from an early, early stage, and I, I, I probably rem- I probably remember every gag he ever told on, on those shows.

Didn't quite get all the stuff as a kid, but now, wow, what a performer.

My dad was also into Dave Allen, great Irish comic, who would give these very long jokes, stories, it'd be like five, ten minutes, with one punchline, but it was still a funny story.

Ken Dodd, he did the same.

As I went off into my own interest and such, I got into...