Comedians You Should Know: Dara Ó Briain

November 5, 2010 Features 3

Dara Ó Briain is many things: stand-up comic, panel show host and author, but he’s also a lot of other interesting things. For example, he’s a former kids’ TV presenter in his native Ireland, fluent in Irish Gaelic, Irish national debating champ, self-confessed science nerd and Catholic atheist.

Dara Ó Briain from Telegraph.co.uk

You may be wondering how someone could be both Catholic and an atheist at the same time. Having been raised Irish Catholic, Ó Briain has your answer (as usual, the regular adult language and concept warnings apply – with the bonus of the occasional Irish swear word!):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUVNZFylTdo

Because he was raised Catholic, he’s been steeped in the Judeo-Christian traditions. Because he’s well-educated and a skeptic, he’s investigated other religions as well – just so he knows what he’s talking about. In this next clip, fairly typical of his stand-up, Ó Briain talks about different faiths and gives three very good reasons why we got here via evolution rather than having just been created by God as we are:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0123R6vjIoE

Being a man of science (he studied Maths and Physics at university), Ó Briain often talks about real science vs. pseudoscience and hokum. He’s especially testy about homeopathy and nutritionists (this clip from Dara Ó Briain Talks Funny):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIaV8swc-fo

Also from Talks Funny, Dara blanks out when trying to remember the NATO phonetic alphabet. For the record, V is “Victor” not…what he says. :D

As an Irish man living in the UK, Ó Briain has an interesting perspective on life in Britain. In fact, he’s written a book, “Tickling the English” about what he, as an outsider, sees as quintessentially English traits and mannerisms. As is evident by the second half of the clip, there’s still some residual hard feelings regarding the Troubles:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4cxzfEuDQs

And one last clip about religion – specifically the idea of mixed marriages:

I have first hand experience with the differences in the Lord’s Prayer. I was raised various denominations of Protestant. My godchildren were baptized Catholic. Naturally, the Lord’s Prayer was said and (to my reckoning) the Catholics stopped three-quarters of the way through! (and yes, I finished under my breath. BWAHAHAHAHA! Take that, you Catholics!)

I really would have liked to include Dara on “Mock the Week”, the topical comedy-news panel show he hosts but, as the host, his job is to rein in the panelists so he doesn’t get to be funny for more than a few seconds at a stretch, usually. I would highly suggest you search YouTube for clips and episodes of “Mock the Week” because they’re almost universally funny. Do be warned though, there’s often a lot of very, very off color humor. If you like dark or wrong humor though, MTW is definitely for you.

You can get “Tickling the English” in both hardcover and Kindle editions from Amazon. He has some audio comedy available too, but none of his DVDs have made it to Region 1 (no surprise there.) If you can play Region 2 DVDs, you’ve got a good selection from Amazon UK, including “Mock the Week: Too Hot For TV”. Luckily, between his stand-up and MTW clips, there’s plenty of Dara to see on YouTube.

Some additional links: