Doireann Garrihy was clearly born to make a podcast about laughing. Like, if you auditioned all the laughs in Ireland, you’d cast Garrihy’s for the lead. It’s a warm and infectious cackle, and the RTÉ 2FM presenter has it primed and ready to unleash at any hint of humour, deploying it as a light, breathy titter or full throated horn-blower as the moment requires. (That’s range, obvs.) But her podcast, The Laughs of Your Life with Doireann Garrihy, isn’t just a weekly half-hour laugh track. It packs a heftier punch in its well-produced package, dealing almost as often with sadness and suffering as it does with humour and high jinks.
In the relatively new world of podcasting, TLOYL is practically middle aged. The first episode aired in March 2019 with a concept that turned out to be remarkably prescient, given what befell the world 12 months later. The format is both simple and disarming. Each week introduces us to a different, well known guest – we’re talking Micheál Martin, Paul Mescal, Anne Doyle, Joanne McNally and the like – who answers a series of set questions about laughter. What’s your first memory of laughter? Do you have a favourite joke?
But Garrihy’s list of questions also requires guests to explore the first time they were laughed at, the time in their life that was no laughing matter, or the time when if they didn’t laugh they’d cry. Everyone receives the questions in advance, so there’s no gotcha moment. Still, guests get surprisingly vulnerable as they talk about loss, grief, being bullied at school or being ridiculed by strangers. They also dig into the kind of memories that would never typically get an airing: school pranks and car trips and family moments that offer a glimpse into their formation. (Looking at you, PJ Kirby cracking up when his mother offers his carsick sister a cushion to throw up on in the absence of a bag.)
In a way it’s the nonlaughing questions that paint their laughing counterparts into such high relief. They’re how you get Donie O’Sullivan talking candidly about his depression, Christy Dignam revealing he was sexually abused as a child, McNally discussing her experiences with an eating disorder or Martin talking about losing two children. It’s unexpected how an expected question can disarm an interviewee and, by extension, us listeners too.
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But always, Garrihy brings it back to the light side, and she’s good at that. She’s adept at comedic impressions – her impression of Mary Lou McDonald while interviewing Mary Lou McDonald makes for a fairly brilliant audio bite – and her quick wit and easy manner allow for some entertaining back and forth. She’s empathetic and heartfelt, and doesn’t try to dodge the darkness, but she’s determined to return to the zone of mirth and cackle, ending each episode with a quickfire round that puts a stop to any further deep dives.
Guests on The Laughs of Your Life are also required to tell a joke, and listening to the offerings is a reminder of the gamut of humour out there. Garrihy laughs obligingly at every single one, and it’s a triumph that even when the jokes are old, or the timing woeful, there’s something winning about hearing, say, Anne Doyle land a punchline. Sometimes things aren’t that funny, but it helps to find a way to laugh.
