At a funny stage of his life

Dara O'Briain talks to Shane Hegartyabout his 'lone wolf' career, the corporate comedy scene - and how he dislikes print interviews because he doesn't get the last laugh.

Tuesday night. Vicar Street, Dublin. Dara O'Briain is fresh off stage, the full house has departed, so he ambles into an almost empty bar. It's been a good night. "If I could be judged on that show, I'd be happy."

My reaction - an exaggerated, "Really?" - is not based on the quality of the show. If you had stood on a stage and worked an audience as expertly as he has just done, you'd be pretty happy too. It's just that it suggests he's done it all, can sit back and enjoy things. "No, that was great. Much better than last night. I'd be happy with that."

At which point, he is ambushed by a pincer-movement of fans, hardy stragglers who haven't been put off by a worknight or the babysitter's rates. It's Tuesday night in a Dublin bar, meaning there isn't the most electric of atmospheres for him to enjoy a post-show buzz. This, though, is the man who gave the voiceover to a series of ads extolling the virtues of going to the pub midweek.

"I'm the Nick O'Tine for this generation," he'll later joke. "And nobody can accuse me of not supporting the product to which I'm attached."

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. LUNCH. He had a late night doing his best for Dublin pubs.

"Every time I come back here it's like Oisín coming back from Tir na nÓg," he says of his returns from London. "I come back intermittently, but I always think it's exactly the same as it was eight years ago, the last time I was here living in Dublin and when I was single. But every time I come back, even though I'm older, and handle it much less well, I still fall back into the idea that I'm in Dublin so therefore I have to go out."

But friends have jobs and spouses and kids, and - having performed his current show in Dublin over a dozen times - O'Briain has "exhausted" friends and family who haven't seen it already. So, returning to his home city (he grew up in Bray) only to spend it in a hotel, isn't it a lonely business?

"No, it's not lonely at all. There are times when you think it would be. But you're standing on stage and you essentially flirt with the crowd for two hours and then you go backstage, change your shirt and walk out the door. And you're left walking about town somewhere, on your own, not knowing anyone or where to go . . . That all sounds a bit fragile, but that concentrated work is really so much fun."

He is at a level where the theatres are big and full, and the hotels are decent. Which must make it different from clinging on to the lower rungs of the UK's comedy circuit?

"There's an act doing that. I remember watching him and thinking, this is terrible, this is rubbish. He's notable because he has a joke about a particular film, which started as 'that film is out' and then became 'did you see that film on DVD' which then became 'I was watching that film on television the other night'. It's hack stuff. But someone said, you know he earns twice as much as his mates do, he gets back to home a lot of the time, and he has a very good life out of it." He admits that that sounds snobbish.

He's been off that circuit for five years, quickly but quietly becoming one of our most successful comedy exports. He has gradually worked his way into a small, vital niche in British television. He's a guest who sits as easily with Jonathan Ross as he does with Parkinson or Richard and Judy. He fits neatly into a range of programmes: as host of Have I Got News for You and his own panel show Mock the Week; messing about on water for Three Men and a Boat; co-presenting a light debate on British attitudes to Europe; doing the Royal Variety Performance. Meanwhile, his stand-up career - greased by observational wit and impressive repartee with the audience - is in fine health.

Which is good thing, because, now 36, he admits that if he was still on the circuit he'd have become nauseous from going round in circles. "It would have killed me eventually. In fact the time when I was lonely was about two years in when I'd done Don't Feed the Gondolas [ for RTÉ] and I was quite established here. A couple of nights in Vicar Street, nothing big. And I could hang out in Dublin six nights a week, and I could get in anywhere and I was a young man having a great time, and I left that in order to go into a box room in a house share. I'd a couple of years of doing the English circuit, which was grim. I was 31 and essentially living as a student."

The British comedy circuit, he says, trains you in a certain type of comedy, knocks the edges off you, but can eventually leave you doing only "jokes for stags".

Success, then, makes life easier both on and off stage. "People ask if I get heckled. Well nobody's going to spend €28, and they've brought the wife as well, they've arranged a babysitter, they've got home early from work, changed, checked the kids are okay. Then they head out, they have a couple of drinks and then find their seats and sit down, and then you walk out. Who's going to stand up and shout 'get off, you're shit'?"

Can that make you lazier as a comedian?

"You do not want to walk off to a smaller round of applause than you walked on [ to]. If you walk out to a huge cheer, then you need to top that, that's the level it goes to. It's very self-motivating."

Touring, it would seem, makes for an unconventional life. Married, he is politely unwilling to speak publicly about his private life, but he does say that comedians meet "a lot of nice women who say, 'oh my God you're a comedian, that's really funny and interesting'. And then, after about a month they say, are you going away again this month. And you have to say, 'it's my job'. And they can't take it and it gets frustrating and it's an irritant.

"So, there isn't a golden rule for who you might end up with, but they have to be someone who realises that unfortunately it's a reality of the job. I do think there's a point you go into broadcasting or something else because you can't keep touring. Luckily I am off the circuit, so what I do is every two years I do a big tour. And I think that's a sacrifice I'm willing to do, where every second year I'm away for a long time."

Would the drawbacks of that life be crystallised with the arrival of a child?

"I worry about it a lot. Although, I look at Jack Dee who tours, and Lee Evans who tours. But there is a thinning out of the ranks as you get to your 40s, where people just find it a sacrifice too far. The arc of the comedian is that it's a great fun way to live in your 20s. Hopefully in your 30s you start to do longer tours and start to make a bit of money and you enjoy that and get to fully express yourself. And then in your 40s you start to get less hot," he says.

"Then into your 50s, your kids are embarrassed because you're still a comedian but not as hot as you once were. And then in your 60s and 70s you become better appreciated because it's great that you're still around and it's amazing the way that you've kept going. So there's an awkward 25-year lean period, which basically I'm facing in five or 10 years time, and if I can get through that . . ."

It's here that his dislike of print interviews comes into play. He doesn't enjoy them because, "it kills inflection. It knocks your timing off. It is edited by somebody else, even after the process of self-editing you've already done. And unfortunately what I do, when written down looks quite leaden on the page."

SO, THERE'S NO self-pity in his tracking of the comedy arc. In fact, he sounds pretty jolly about everything, including the limited shelf life, the "lone wolf" career, as he calls it. Although, those who remember him from his days on the debating scene in UCD in the early 1990s know that his act, such as it is, is only a far more polished version of how he used to entertain lecture halls then. And off stage he is hardly different from on it - only the words come less quickly and he tends not to bounce around as much.

So, what does he think has made him such a regular television fixture? "There's an element that I'm a relatively safe pair of hands. The idea is that every time you see me on television I should be being funny. I don't do interviews in which I say, I really want to talk about my feelings on this particular issue," he says. "I'm there to be funny. And I've earned the right to go on those shows by being funny all the time. So there's a pressure to make sure I do that all the time."

He's also doing pretty well out of the corporate circuit. If it's a Wednesday night, for instance, it could the glass-fitters' awards.

"Jack Dee has called it comedy for grown-ups. It is a room full of people who are 30-60 . . . They're brilliant on one level, because you get to come up with one great joke about retail interiors or refrigeration or whatever it is, but on the other hand they're kind of like vapour in that they disappear out of your head completely, unlike a tour."

How many corporate events would he do a week?

"Take a guess." I might originally have guessed a handful a year, but the way he talks about it could be three a week. "Yeah. Close. It depends, there are seasons for it."

In London's Grosvenor Hotel, it's like a mini festival every night. "If I'm working in one room, I'll go and see who's working in another and it'll be Jimmy [ Carr] or Frankie [ Boyle]. It's a whole other circuit. For some reason they're treated like a dirty little secret. Just because they're all wearing tuxedos doesn't change the fact that they're just punters in a room. As a circuit it's slightly more pleasant than the actual circuit."

What would he not play?

"Birthday parties. You get invited every so often to them. You're on a hiding to nothing."

His future plans are straightforward: more tours, more DVDs, more TV and radio. "If I can keep the level I'm at going for the next five to 10 years then I'll sit back and have a look at the next phase of my life. I'm lucky enough to work in a business where looks don't matter. I'd go as far as to say that being ugly doesn't matter. We are the ugliest part of the entertainment industry, that is just such a relief. If I can keep this going I'm not going to ask for much more than that."