Awesome absurdities of daily life

US comedians Tim and Eric are bringing their surreal sketches to Ireland – all delievered with an air of utter oddity

‘WOULD YOU describe us as an underground sensation in Ireland? Would that be fair?” Wareheim quips as I try to describe how excited I am that they are finally coming to perform here. In truth, they are something of an “underground sensation”, with England in particular as somewhere they feel a kinship with.

"Tim gave me a League of GentlemanDVD once for my birthday, and I loved it. We also share a love of Monty Python, and Chris Morris; Jamis one of the best things I have ever seen, as is Look Around You."

Wareheim and Heidecker met in 1994, while studying film at Philadelphia’s Temple University, before comedy unexpectedly took hold. “I think Tim and I had a pretty good comedy education when we were kids, but when we got together comedy was not very cool, it was perceived as the stand-up comedian with the blazer in front of the brick wall, of course we later found out that all sorts was going on. So we came in the back door, making stuff for each other for fun. We are not shy men [laughs], so when we met, we would mess with people, and push the boundaries of what is appropriate in public.”

Meeting Bob Odenkirk of the brilliant Mr Showaround 2001 changed everything. "Bob was literally our comedy idol at the time. When we went to LA to meet with him, we were the most nervous guys you have ever seen. He took us under his wing and helped us create Tom Goes to the Mayor, and taught us about story structure and everything we needed to know to make our first show."

This gave them the confidence to evolve Awesome Show, Great Job, which is among the most surreal, satirical and funny sketch comedy you will ever see, involving kindred spirits such as "Weird Al" Yankovic, Neil Hamburger, and John C Reilly. "I think in the underground world of Neil Hamburger and us, there is a good friendship that happens, and when you see another person making stuff like Look Around You, they instantly feel like a part of your club and are people you want to be around."

It also means they have a stellar group of people willing to engage in utter oddity with them, for example, for their recent short film The Terrys(which is about a grotesque couple who give birth to a puppet boy who then teaches them about love), they drafted in Peter Serafinowicz (of Look Around You) to do the voice of the puppet boy, something Heidecker gleefully expands on. "Our agents set up a meeting with his agent, because we wanted to meet him more than anyone else in the world, and it was a total love-fest, we had lunch and talked about every little detail of each others' shows and became friends."

Through their sense of hyper-reality, they expose the absurdity of everyday living, whether through their sketches, their film Tim Eric's Billion Dollar Movie(out next year), or ill-fated game show with Neil Hamburger (Heidecker said it wasn't picked up because it was "deemed unworthy"); and they do not deal in cruel comedy, which became even more evident in collaborations with the lovely septuagenarian Richard Dunn, who became something of a cult figure, before he passed away last year. "He was a really sweet old man who became a mascot and a good luck charm for us," Heideckers says. "He was such a free spirit, and was up for anything. Sometimes the joke was on him, but more often he was in on it, and couldn't believe that at that stage of his life he was being recognised, and often asked to do birthday parties.

"A spoof fundraiser for Dunn in 2009 called Muscles for Bones, started off the live aspect of Awesome Show. We just had an idea and saw it through, we didn't know that he was eventually going to die of course."

Wareheim says: “Doing the show live is a totally different experience, we can’t hide behind editing and soundtracks. Tim and I both started performing in bands, so we love getting out there, and we have designed a show that works in a live crowd, versus what you see on the television show, and you are going to see characters that you love, it’s such a fun thing to experience.”

Tim and Eric play the Vodafone Comedy Festival in the Iveagh Gardens from tomorrow to Sunday