He's one of stand up's hottest properties. We spoke to Dylan Moran about his upcoming tour, Yeah, Yeah, being a frontman and anger.
Even a child can tell if someone's trying to manipulate an audience
You're never afraid to tackle grand topics in your stand-up, is there an overriding theme to the new tour, Yeah, Yeah?
No, it's about the same things I always talk about, the big things like family, death, love, sex. Shopping. The kind of things we all go through everyday.
Talking about your stand up, you once said that "If you’re the lead singer, then the audience is the rhythm section", what kind of frontman are you hoping to be on this tour?
One who remembers the words. I'm just starting to tour the new material, so I'm playing smaller places and then I'm off to Scandinavia soon. It keeps you on your toes, a new show. The bulk of the material is written already but inevitably stuff comes up when you're doing it live and you have to adapt it to fit. It's a bit like trying to control an army with an audience, there's thousands of people and you're taking some one way, some the other. Some get blown up.
Despite having gathered a few mantelpieces worth of gongs you seem unfazed by trophies and the like – is there anything you could be awarded that'd mean a lot?
No, I mean the people who form opinions and hand out their garlands, all that stuff doesn't matter. You know yourself if it's good, it's pretty plain, especially when you've been it for a number of years. You get to a certain level and it's pretty rare that you'd drop below that. But you know when a show's gone well, it doesn't always go exactly as you wanted, or expected, sometimes it goes better, but you never know everything that's going to happen.
For someone whose goal in life is to never ever say 'I have a job' you work pretty hard – how do you feel about the on the road element of touring?
It can be tricky when you're 50 gigs in to a tour, you do start feeling it. I'm about to set off again and I'll be going to Australia later in the year, there's a lot of flying and criss-crossing the country, going back and forth to places you've already been to. You keep yourself going though, there is a bit of wear and tear but you write and read and draw, I go to galleries wherever I am. I'm not fussy, I'll just go to whatever they're got.
You've spoken of your admiration of comics like Stewart Lee and Simon Munnery, among others – do you ever feel like there are gangs in stand up or is it a more solitary business than that?
There might well be gangs but I'm not a part of that so I'm not aware of it. I'm sure there are little coteries and all that sort of thing going on, there are certainly people you see who you admire, like Hans Teeuwen, who's a very funny man, but no, I'm not part of any gang.
When asked about avoiding panel shows and the like you said you don't want light entertainment; you want heavy entertainment – is it difficult to avoid watering down?
I don't think so no, you just have to do what you do. You can't talk up to people, or down to them, you just have to keep talking out of yourself. I mean people can tell if you're flannelling, even a child can tell if someone's trying to manipulate an audience. What people want and respond to is someone who's talking directly, well that's what I want anyway.
Reviewers often paint you as an angry man, but that seems to be a pretty major over-simplification. How much of what you write comes out of anger at the state of the world?
Some of it does, sure, but not all of it. Some things you see are all wall to wall rage and nihilism which is just boring. I mean anger obviously has played an important role traditionally in comedy, but we're not doing agit prop. You wouldn't want to spend an evening in a pub with a man who was angry the whole time, and the same goes for a theatre. I couldn’t just be angry the whole time.
You've said you'd rather know what somebody’s view is than their biography, and that it's in the work, anyway. Do you ever worry you're giving too much away in your stand up?
No, I sometimes worry about whether I should get in more; I mean you can't forget that's what you're there for. I'm not giving away intimate details about the little details of my everyday life or anything, it's a caricature.
What's next for you after the tour - do you have any plans to return to sitcoms, any fiction writing projects on the go?
Yeah, I'm always fiddling away, there's always a few pots on the fire. But nothing definite just yet.
Dylan Moran's Yeah Yeah tour starts in April, for dates and tickets see http://www.dylanmoran.com/
