Funnyman Tommy seeks new horizons with Sky

Date Published: 05-Dec-2012

Tommy Tiernan’s current choice of reading material isn’t exactly what you’d describe as lightweight. Lined up alongside the popular comedian are the first five books of the bible, The Glenstal Book of Readings and a tome entitled Sex, Marriage and Family in World Religion.

“I read a lot of serious material and a lot of depressing stuff,” he explains. Fortunately, for his thousands of fans, that material provides the starting point for hilarious observations on Irishness, family life and religion, which he’ll be sharing with people on his World Tour of Galway this month.

“I’d be very drawn to religion,” he says, adding that on a recent work trip to England he found himself attending Mass in London a few times.

He describes himself as having “a religious instinct”; one which is not “at home in the Catholic Church, but it’s not at home outside it either”.

He’s happy to talk about religion, but right now, he’s most excited about a short, autobiographical drama, which he wrote, acted in and directed for Sky 1. It’s part of the Little Crackers series that gave birth to Chris O’Dowd’s Moone Boy.

Although the story is autobiographical, he decided to shoot it in Brighton to differentiate it from Moone Boy, which is also set in the 1970s. Tommy’s Little Cracker, which sees him make his debut as a director, is based on autobiography, but “wouldn’t be strictly true”, he laughs.

He is hopeful it will open new doors to him in terms of directing, and has a meeting scheduled with Sky for January about a possible series.

“The signs are good, but you never know until you start shooting,” he says. He is optimistic though, and has been giving a lot of thought to where in Galway it will be set, because the location will be a vital component.

“I was really upset with [John Michael McDonagh’s film] The Guard. There were a lot of great laughs in it and it was great to see bits of Galway on the screen but it was a non-Galway story super imposed on the place.” He compares it to Bob Quinn’s film from the 1970s, Poitín, “which came from the stones”.

That’s the approach Tommy favours, and while a story hasn’t suggested itself yet, the location will be crucial. He’s torn between using Connemara with its “extremity of landscape which is perfect for storytelling”, or basing it in Galway City, where “you’d have to make a story out of a specific place”.

Either way, he’d like to make it as Irish as possible, although it’s being made for English television. He recently saw DruidMurphy and was impressed with the fact that Tom Murphy’s writing made no concessions to US or American audiences. “Yet the reviews from the UK and America were phenomenal,” he notes.

It’s the same with stand-up, he feels. “The reason I always found American comics so exciting is that they were American and weren’t trying to be universal.”

At the moment, the Sky project is still tentative, but he’s enjoying the creative process and the prospect of doing more directing.

“It just seems right. I’m comfortable making decisions – even if they are the wrong ones.”

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.