'I had to learn to live without luxuries - like food and water'

'Oh my God, what have I done?' thought comedian Keith Farnan shortly after jacking in his career as a lawyer, writes Brian Boyd

IF YOU’VE spent years studying law and then more years establishing yourself as a successful litigation lawyer, it’s a great idea altogether to throw it all away and become a stand-up comedian. That’s what Cobh man Keith Farnan was thinking when he did just that a few years ago. He would live the dream.

Except there was no dream. And not much of a life either. “After making this big decision to jack in the career and go full-time you find yourself playing to three people under a bridge in Birmingham and thinking, ‘Oh my God, what have I done?’ to yourself,” says Farnan. “It was just a massive slap in the face. At least as a litigation lawyer I had some idea of what I was doing, but I had no idea what I was doing – or trying to do – as a comedian. I had to learn how to live without luxuries – luxuries like food and water.”

What prompted the full-time move into stand-up was a growing feeling he had that he was a “tourist” in the comedy world. “I think other comics reacted to that – that it was like a hobby or something for me,” he says.

“And they probably still think ‘yes, but he’s got something to fall back on’, when the reality is I probably don’t. Even if I were to try and work as a lawyer again, imagine how my CV would look – ‘So you’ve been a comedian for the past number of years’ – that’s hardly going to work well for you.”

Not taking the usual Dublin route of an open spot at the Comedy Cellar followed by years of trying to find a rung on the over-populated Irish comedy ladder, Farnan hit the UK circuit. “In the beginning you just have to park your respect and dignity and do the really crappy gigs,” he says. “You really can’t cheat experience. And it really is about performing anywhere to anybody. Such is the situation now in Dublin that there’s a six-month long waiting list for an open spot at the Comedy Cellar – which is why so many new comedy clubs are opening. Often, it’s the only gig you can get by setting up your own club. It’s like that Malcolm Gladwell book (Outliers), you need those hours and hours of experience.”

Trundling around the UK comedy circuit was an eye-opener. “Unlike doing shows over here, you’re on the same bill as Canadian, Australian and English award-winners. It really does raise your game. You see some acts perform and you just think to yourself ‘I know nothing’ because of how good they are. You’re going on in a club after a big TV act or someone such as Tim Minchin or Reginald D Hunter. You just can’t get that sort of experience in Ireland.”

After a few years he found himself a regular at London's prestigious Comedy Store venue. "A few months ago the people from the Michael McIntryre Comedy RoadshowTV programme had decided to do one of their shows from Dublin and they get a lot of their acts from The Comedy Store. It's really just me and Ian Coppinger who are the regular Irish performers there and I was very lucky that the people from the programme were in the night I was on. I did my 15 minutes and afterwards they asked me to go on the programme."

In a rapidly changed comedy world, a successful McIntyre Roadshow appearance can turn around your career ( videJohn Bishop and Kevin Bridges). Farnan though – who is on the Dublin bill alongside Tommy Tiernan — is cautious. "You do hear of the breakout acts from the programme but never of those who don't build on it," he says. "Doing it was a great experience and the exposure is massive – it goes out on a prime-time Saturday night slot and millions watch it – so I'll just have to see what the reaction is. They're incredibly easy to work with. They knew I was doing a show at the Edinburgh Festival – this when they were filming in The Olympia in August – and that was no problem for them. I just cancelled two shows in Edinburgh and flew back over to do it."

His Edinburgh show this year – Sex Traffic: How Much Is That Woman In The Window– showcased his more theatrical side. As opposed to his stand-up slots in the clubs, his one-hour shows tend to be issue-based affairs. "That all started when I was a law student in Cork and I did a summer internship in the office of Barry Scheck who was on OJ Simpson's defence team during that famous trial," he says. "Scheck runs something called 'The Innocence Project' – which thankfully he had set up before working with OJ – and I found myself getting very interested in how the death penalty is used in the US. This all went into a show called Cruel and Unusualand I followed that up with a show called No Blacks. No Jews. No Irish. No Dogs. All Welcomeabout prejudice and the rise of racism in Europe."

His show this year was provoked by a news story about the arrival of the “Peek-A-Boo Pole Dancing Kit” in the children’s toy section of Tesco.

“The kit contained an 8ft pole, fake money and a garter belt,” he says. “It was just unbelievable. And then at the same time Primark were in the news for selling push-up bras to seven-year-old girls. The show looks at the sexualisation of children and violence against women. And there’s also material in there about women’s rights. Is there equality? Have woman’s rights gone too far or not gone far enough? If the death penalty show was all about man’s inhumanity to man, this is about man’s inhumanity to women.”

He did about 65 shows during August in Edinburgh – sometimes even (on the same day) travelling down to Glasgow for a stand-up slot once his show had finished. He used all his legal analytical skills to plot how to approach the notoriously ruthless festival. “I sat down with some comedians who had had very good Edinburghs and some comedians who had had very bad Edinburghs and learnt from that,” he says. “I figured out the best time for my show was around 6.30pm because at 8pm you have all the shows from the big guns and you can’t compete with them. And then if you go on at 10pm you’re straying into drunken audience time. I also encouraged very early reviews – some comics want to run in the show for the first week of the festival but the danger is that by the time the review actually appears it’s the last few days of the festival and really not that much use.”

He next went out on a tour of Asia. “You’re really just playing to ex-pat audiences and the shows were in Beijing and Shanghai. There was also a show in a place called Shenzhen, which I thought sounded like a village but it has a population of 22 million or something,”

Now attracting “heat” as they say, he’s off next week to do some work for BBC3 and he talks about “internet development projects, short films and Radio 4 work” coming up.

While he may be the only qualified lawyer on the comedy circuit, he thinks there should be more. “If you think about it, going from law to comedy isn’t such a big jump. In both you have to be quick-witted and think on your feet. And there’s always been a real sense of theatricality in law. I know a few barristers who would make very good stand-ups.”

The Michael McIntyre Comedy Roadshowfrom Dublin is on BBC1 on Saturday night. No Blacks. No Jews. No Dogs. No Irish. All Welcomeis at the Granary Theatre, Cork on Oct 15; Galway Comedy Festival on October 24 and Project Arts Theatre, Dublin, from Nov 1 to Nov 6