Catch Dara O Briain, one of the most recognisable faces on British TV, as he goes back to his day job as a world class stand up comedian. Dara will be coming to Nottingham Royal Concert Hall this weekend, Friday 1st & Saturday 2nd June with his eagerly awaited brand new stand-up show ‘Voice Of Reason’.
This is the chance to see one of the most charismatic, intelligent, fast-talking and downright funny live performers working today back in his natural environment! Tickets for ‘Voice Of Reason’ are on sale now from www.daraobriain.com or from www.trch.co.uk
As well as his adept comedic work, Dara is one of the most in demand faces on British TV as host of BBC Two’s hugely successful Mock The Week, Stargazing Live, Robot Wars and Dave’s Go8Bit.
Dara has also previously released five classic stand-up DVDs with Universal Pictures (UK); ‘Crowd Tickler’ (2015), ‘Craic Dealer’ (2012), ‘This Is The Show’ (2010), ‘Dara O Briain Talks Funny Live In London’ (2008) and ‘Dara O Briain Live at the Theatre Royal’ (2006) – all of which have also aired on BBC TV as one hour specials.
Earlier this year, Dara’s first children’s book ‘Beyond The Sky: You and the Universe’ was released by Scholastic UK.
The third series of Go8Bit is currently airing on Dave, Monday nights at 10pm.
Interview with the man himself:
Voice of Reason Tour
By James Rampton
Dara O Briain has made a real name for himself as a TV presenter in recent years. He has shone fronting shows as diverse as Mock the Week, Stargazing Live, The Apprentice: You’re Fired!, The Panel, School of Hard Sums, Dara Ó Briain’s Science Club, Robot Wars, Dara and Ed’s Big Adventure and Go8Bit.
But, I’m sure you’ll be delighted to learn, Dara is about to return to his first love: stand-up. He is embarking on a mammoth national tour with a brand-new show entitled “Voice of Reason.” “It’s my job,” the comedian enthuses. “I can’t wait!”
Tickets for the tour, which stretches to the end of the year, have proved so popular that Dara has just added another 22 dates to the schedule. So you had better get your skates on if you’d like one of the hottest tickets around.
It is no surprise that tickets for “Voice of Reason” have been flying off the shelves. His shows are always hugely popular for the simple reason that Dara is one of the most brilliant live comedians in the business. A dazzling wit and a magnetic stage presence, the Irish comedian possesses a breath-taking ability to create superb off-the-cuff material out of thin air.
A graduate in mathematics and theoretical physics from University College Dublin, 46-year-old Dara also manifests a razor-sharp intelligence that he uses to hilarious effect in dismantling all sorts of bogus theories.
The critics have been unanimous in praising Dara’s superlative stand-up. The Evening Standard declares that he has, “A super-fit mind that is so fast you have to wear your best trainers to keep up with it”.
According to The Guardian, “His set is a masterclass in intelligent, no-frills stand-up”. For its part, The Times comments that, “If you want a comic who can hold an audience in the palm of his hand for two hours, here’s your man”.
The Daily Telegraph, meanwhile, observes that, “The Irishman’s way of handling his audience, comedic neurons firing away by the billion a second, has to be seen to be believed”.
Dara is a delight to spend time with. An hour in his company simply flies by. He starts by underlining how pleased he is to be performing to a live audience again. “Doing stand-up is a euphoric experience. The great thing is the anticipation. You’re thinking, ‘You’re going to love this next bit!’”
What Dara does better than any other stand-up is play to the home crowd. He is fantastic at making a show specific to the particular town he is performing in.
He says that, “It’s wonderful to create local jokes that repay three or seven or even 12 years later. When I play Coventry, for instance, there are always packets of crisps on the stage. That comes from an audience interaction I had 12 years ago.
“Back then, I was chatting with a guy in the audience who worked for a crisp company. I did a joke about it, and when I came back on stage after the interval, there were 12 packets of crisps waiting for me on stage! Many people in Coventry remember that. So that’s the reason why the crisps are still there.”
Dara had an equally memorable experience in Glasgow. “There was a plastic bag waiting for me on stage. I did a joke pretending to be Brad Pitt at the end of Se7en – ‘What’s in the bag?’ It turned out that in the bag was a funny fur hat and scarf combination and a stethoscope.
“That was a reference to Dr Bear, a character I did three shows ago in Glasgow. Someone had left that bag on stage because they remembered it. It’s tremendous to build up relationships in all these different places.”
He goes on to recall the trademark of his visits to Norwich. “There’s a giant duck outside Norwich that I always refer to repeatedly when I’m there. A picture of the duck is on a brown tourism sign next to a picture of a church. Why is the duck the same size as the church?”
In “Voice of Reason”, Dara will be discussing such topics as the ordinariness of his daily life. He reflects that, “If there is a theme to the show, it is that at the age of 46, I have an incredibly normal life!”
On stage, Dara will also be mulling over the rise of the nerd. The comic observes that, “Nerds have become much cooler recently. Thanks to the Internet, they can find each other now. It’s very positive.”
In addition, in the show Dara will be talking about his on-screen relationship with Professor Brian Cox on Stargazing Live. “When Brian and I work together, he is the expert and I am the broadcaster. When he is talking, sometimes a producer says into my earpiece: ‘A plane is now hovering over Scandinavia with shots of the aurora borealis. We have to cut to that.’
“So at those moments, I have to interrupt Brian. But furious viewers then write in saying, ‘Why did you interrupt Professor Brian Cox? I was enjoying watching him!’”
Dara adds that, “They genuinely think I interrupt Brian because I’m jealous of him. They imagine I’m saying, ‘Sorry to interrupt you, Brian, but it is not going to be all about you tonight. I also know things that I want to tell the audience’. Brian and I find that idea hilarious!”
The comedian will also be devoting a large section of the show to a very funny routine about how he has become the subject of a fake news website.
The comedian, whose first children’s book ‘Beyond The Sky: You and the Universe’ was published by Scholastic UK last year, explains that, “I go in to the madness of this story about these things that are supposed to have happened to me. The producers of this fake news site have filled in some details. For example, they mention James Street in Dublin. So some effort has been made in producing it.
“But it’s still so ludicrous. The site pops up next to features headlined, ‘She has discovered the secret that dentists don’t want you to know’, and, ‘20 stars whose lives have been ravaged by drugs.’ In one of those, they put a picture of Chris O’Dowd beside a picture of Shane McGowan!”
This terrific routine emphasises the extent to which the internet has turned into an uncontrollable Wild West. Dara reflects that, “The internet has become a torrent of disinformation.
“There was a tiny moment where we thought we could use the internet to amplify scientific truths and have a great weapon for fighting lies. But no, that was completely wrong. What the internet is really useful for is more lies!”
Dara, who has previously released five classic stand-up DVDs with Universal Pictures (UK), ‘Crowd Tickler’ (2015), ‘Craic Dealer’ (2012), ‘This Is The Show’ (2010), ‘Dara O Briain Talks Funny Live In London’ (2008) and ‘Dara O Briain Live at the Theatre Royal’ (2006), will be visiting more than 20 countries on his world tour of “Voice of Reason”.
Thanks to the millions of people in different countries watching his shows online, Dara has become an enormous draw all over the world. He muses that, “The whole thing has opened out and gone global. I recently walked past a bus stop in Stavanger that had a picture of Russell Howard.
“In Tromsø in the Arctic Circle, I walked on stage and said, ‘I don’t know how often you have these gigs’. And they called out, ‘We had Bill Bailey here last night!’ That punctured my balloon a bit. Bill went on to play Svalbard, which is even further north. I thought I was being a hero doing Tromsø, but he was doing a gig to polar bears in the Svalbard arts centre!”
Dara closes by underscoring what he hopes audiences will take away from “Voice of Reason”. “I get really enthusiastic about science-y stuff. You can see me getting giddy about space. That’s why I recently wrote that kids’ book about space. But on tour, I’m there to do funny.
“This show is an evening of entertainment. It’s two hours of laughing. It’s not meant to be pedagogic. It is not meant to say, ‘You’ll be laughing, but you’ll also be learning.’ Of course, if that happens, that’s grand. But first and foremost, ‘Voice of Reason’ is just a load of funny stuff. Journalists might write, ‘Oh, he spoke very eloquently about Ireland’.
“But I’m more proud of talking about a giant duck!”
