Sketchy Standup Showcase

I'm Diarmuid Corr from Sketchy with Diarmuid Corr.

Nice coat, dickhead!

I'm outside Blackstaff House for a very special episode,

featuring some of the best new comedians in Northern Ireland.

Welcome to the Sketchy Showcase Stand-up.

Welcome to the Sketchy Stand-up Showcase.

This comedian is the best thing to come out of Lurgan since...

This comedian is from Lurgan. It's Micky Bartlett!

APPLAUSE

Right, OK, I'm going to get stuck straight into this,

cos there's a pizza back there.

I seen a weird thing the other day,

I don't know if anyone's ever seen this.

I was in Lisburn and I seen the weirdest thing

I've ever seen in my life. There was this wee girl crying,

do you know that crying you do when you're a kid where it's like CD-skipping crying?

you're kind of (IMITATES SOBBING CHILD).

The weirdest thing I've ever seen, her mum sat down beside her

and she went, "Our Natalie, I hope we're not going to have to go home

"and talk about your behaviour".

And I thought two things, number one, where is her ma from

and what's wrong with her face?

And number two, are parents talking to their kids now?

Are parents? Did any of your parents talk to you?

'Cos if that's the case, I was raised by two mental cases!

My ma one time hit me and I went, "What that was for?

and she went, "That was for nothing, wait till you do something!"

And so my dad was a proper working class Catholic dude.

I'll tell you a weird thing, my dad once tried to convince me

he was in the famine, that's a true story.

"We wanted over to America, son, but you were born

"and we couldn't afford it".

And there was one day he came home from work

and, God bless him, he was wrecked, he just wanted to have his dinner,

watch a bit of TV and stuff like that, but the problem was

I had a different agenda, right,

because I was six and I'd had a wee glass of Coke.

Dad came in from work and I'm going, "Daddy! What's happening, big man?"

And he put up with this for ages and then after a while

he lost his temper and he turned to me and went, "Michael.

"Would you piss off?"

Now at six years of age, at half nine on a Tuesday

with a wee glass of Coke in me, I thought this would be a good time

to tell my da that I'm now a man.

So I went, "No, no, Dad...

"You piss off!"

He did one of the weirdest things I've ever seen,

he just spun round like this and went,

"One."

Now he'd never hit me before so I didn't really know what he was doing,

and then he went, "Two."

And a voice in my head went, "If he gets to three, you're dead."

So I took off running, right, and my dad done a massive,

it was amazing, he took off his massive steel toe-capped Catholic

"I swear I was in the famine" work boot off, right,

and he threw it, right, but he didn't throw it at me,

he threw it to the place I was running to.

Do you have any idea how scary it is as a child

to run away from a boot, right, that overtakes you

and then just waits for a fight? Scary!

I still live with my parents and it's crazy living with your parents

cos they still treat you like your nine. It's like, "Clean your room"...

It's weird. I'm a grown up and I've got relationships with a girlfriend

and it's mad when you live in your parents' when you're trying to...

..you know, do you know what I mean?

Do you ever walk past a room when you kind of know people are up to stuff?

You kind of hear the (IMITATES BED SQUEAKING).

That's what it sounds like in most peoples' houses.

In my house it's like, "(Shut up!).

"(Shut up!)"

I'm like Rambo in the jungle by himself you know, just, "Shh! Shh!"

("Right, you stay there, I'm going to go check it out!").

You open the bedroom door, you're going "Dad",

your Dad's going "Yep".

You're going, "What are you doing?"

and he goes "I'm just getting a drink",

like HE'S been caught, right, and he goes "What are you doing"

and you go, "(What are we doing?)"

"(I don't know, why are you asking me?)"

"Emm, we're just jumping on the bed".

Your dad's going "Right, well, be careful.

"Remember that time I caught you jumping on it by yourself".

APPLAUSE

That's a, that's a pretty awkward thing to happen, really,

it's not the most awkward thing that's ever happened to me, though.

I was in, I was in Top Man in Lurgan, recently, where I live.

I was dressed like this, so this is probably why this happened.

I don't know if you've had the experience when you're in a shop

and someone comes over and asks, "Do you know where the shoes are?"

and you have to go, "I don't work here" and you're both going "Ha ha!".

This woman came over to me and said, "Do you know where the jeans are?"

Now, I used to work in retail and I knew where the jeans were,

so I went, "Yep, just over there" and as she walked away I thought,

"Ah, Jesus! She thinks I work here now."

I tried to leave and I turned round and she was there again, right,

with a shoe and she went,

"I'm awful sorry to bother you again, son, would you have these in a ten?

"I think my husband might like them".

Now at this point, folks, I definitely should have said, "Sorry,

"I don't actually work here," right, what I actually said was,

"Just give me two seconds...

"I'll run out the back here and have a look for you".

and I went out the back but there was a code for the stock room

and I couldn't get in. I went into one of the changing rooms,

stood for a couple of minutes...

..and went back out and went, "I'm sorry. We don't have those in a ten".

Ladies and gentlemen, at this point I definitely should have said,

"By the way, I don't actually work here."

What I actually said was... was...

"Do you want me to ring Portadown...

LAUGHTER

.."and see if they have any?"

and she said, "Yes," so I went over to the phone,

I didn't know the number, so I just pretended to hit all the buttons

and I picked the phone up...

"It's ringing, it's ringing now.

"I know it's pretty busy cos we've a sale on,

"the area manager's coming on Tuesday, so it's all hands on.

"Hiya, Grainne."

"Yeah, it's Micky here from Lurgan, eh,

"I'm just, I'm eh, I'm just wondering if you have a Dunlop Green Flash

"in a ten? That's... Aye, she's coming here on Tuesday as well, yeah,

"it's going to be a nightmare. Aye, I know, we're flat out.

"I haven't even got my 15-minute break yet.

"It's been a nightmare. Grainne, I'm actually with a customer now, though.

"That's... Not a prob... Thanks. She's checking now."

"Hiya, Grainne, that's not a problem, pet.

"That's not a problem, thanks, thanks." Put the phone down

and went back over with the shoe and went "I'm really sorry,

"they don't actually have any of those in Portadown either.

"Newry?"

LAUGHTER

"I don't actually work here".

Ladies and gentlemen, thanks very much, I'm Micky Bartlett. Cheers.

APPLAUSE

Behind me is Blackstaff Studios that has hosted celebrities,

sports stars and some of the finest comedians ever to grace the stage.

These local residents...

DOG BARKS

It's a bloody dog, how'd that even get in here?

Is that Keith Burnside's dog?

Shall we just wait a minute, Diarmuid?

No, I'll sort it, give me a second.

DOG YELPS

Here's Ruaidhri Ward.

APPLAUSE

Hello, hello, name's Ruaidhri,

spelled R-U-A-I-D-H-R-I fada

with like a whoosh!

So, yeah, for some of the audience,

I still don't know why my parents

didn't do what they wanted to do

which was to paint me green, give me a cape

and call me Captain Fenian Pants and just be done with the whole charade.

Cos it's kind of like a, like an epidemic in this country

if you're from a certain part of the community

you've got to have an uber Irish name, has to be a super,

there are no Daves or Alans, it's Cuchulainn Finn McCool McRangers.

I'll give you an example, my family, my parents, my siblings

and their kids is James, Nuala, Ciaran, Cora, Bronagh, Eamonn,

Cormac, Caragh, Aoife, Ella,

Niall, Leisha, Micheal, another Eamonn, a Colla

and a Darragh, and that's a list of names that only 15 years ago

would have been followed by, "..were arrested last night

"following a raid".

I've got the moustache going on cos I'm short and I'm bald

and I got bored with my face, you know, let's move on.

I drink too much, that's part of it, but we all do, don't we, children?

Erm, a little too much. You wake up with the fear,

the younger people in the audience will know what the fear is,

their fear is, "I think I called Jolene a bitch on Facebook last night".

Whereas the older people think, "I've killed again, what have I done?"

It started when I was young, I got caught drinking when I was 16,

very terrifying, anyone ever get caught drinking?

-AUDIENCE:

-Yes.

Very sad, yeah, I know it's scary cos when you were younger everyone drank

in packs in a field with three litres of cider.

Like meerkats, you know?

You keep dick, mate?

APPLAUSE

So I went through a... thanks,

I went through that and you know, got my curried, battered sausage special

to hide the alcohol breath,

scraped the keyhole in the door on the way in, ran upstairs,

covered myself in Lynx Africa to get rid of the rest of the alcohol,

popped my head in downstairs, went, "Goodnight,"

and went upstairs to sleep, or so I thought.

Cos I used to share a room with my brother, he's a double Olympian,

he's been to the Olympics twice, my family are proud of him.

He didn't win anything, so screw him.

No, I'm very proud of him, you know and he was robbed in one of them

but balls to him, really, no, balls to him.

He tells me I woke up and went to do the oul' visit to the wardrobe

so he sent me downstairs to the real toilet

and he went back to sleep. And he woke up

and found that I was still not there and he was like,

"Oh no, where is my brother? I must look for him."

Probably. And he went downstairs and I was not in the bathroom,

so he went upstairs and found me and my father in an embrace in bed.

Now in my defence I was drunk, right?

So he did what all good brothers do, he went straight downstairs

and got my mum and they pointed and laughed at us for a while,

then he went to try to wake me up

without awakening the Kraken - my father.

He failed, my dad shouted, I didn't know where I was, I screamed,

I ran into my room and I did what all good kids do when they're in trouble,

I hoped my whole family would die.

And growing up in Andytown in the 1980s, probability...

should have been on my side, em, but unfortunately I had to get up

and go down and face the music and next morning.

I was going downstairs and my beautiful mother passed me

and she said, "Were you doing a bit of sleepwalking last night, son?"

and I said, "Yes, that's exactly what I was doing,

"it wasn't the three litres of Old E, it was merely sleepwalking, mother,

"thank you, I now have... (IMITATES KISSING NOISES)."

I went downstairs and I can face my father now

and I went into the kitchen and he was with the double Olympian

having some kind of heroes' breakfast together

to which I was not invited.

None of my family are here, they're at home watching the double Olympian

bench-press a baby rhinoceros.

To be fair, I've watched him do it too, he's very good at it.

So I sat down, ready to face the music, and my dad looked at me

and he said, "Were you doing a bit of sleepwalking last night, son?"

I thought, "Don't screw it up, Ruaidhri."

I went, "Yes, Dad, yeah". He went, "Well..." And then he winked,

"I tell you what, you're lucky it wasn't a Tuesday night,

"if you know what I mean".

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Whoa, whoa, two things.

Two things. One.

I found out at the tender age of 16 the night of the week

my parents had sex and no-one, no-one should know that.

My dad is long gone, rest him, for seven years, but if I talk to my mum

on a Tuesday and her mind wanders, one does wonder where it's going.

Secondly, did my dad just threaten to abuse me?

Punishments really WERE harder in the '80s.

He may not have meant it, but that's what he said.

Guys, you've been a wee treat, I'm out of here,

name's Ruaidhri Ward, enjoy the rest of the show. All right, take care.

There's a time and a place for everything. Kevin O'Neill.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Hello, hello, everyone.

It's good to be here, it's good to see you all in tonight.

You're probably looking at me wondering, "That weird looking guy,

"what does he do? Because he clearly can't have a real job,

"he's obviously a biker or a rocker or something like that,

"or maybe a Jesus impersonator or something like that."

Yeah, I've got all that before and I actually have a real job,

in my day-to-day life, I'm a nurse, right.

I work at a hospital here in Belfast.

Yeah, that shocked youse all, didn't it?

APPLAUSE

Most men think, that's every man's fantasy,

working with all those nurses, but I want to dispel the myth now,

everyone thinks that nurses are dirty and filthy, right.

It's not so, I've worked with nurses, I've lived with nurses,

I even went out with a nurse for a while, and the dirtiest,

filthiest nurse I've ever encountered...

..you're looking at him right now!

This look that I have, hasn't always been to the liking of my managers.

I got pulled aside recently there, right,

and she says to me, "Kev, you've got to do something about your look,

"because it's not very professional. You need to cut your hair and shave your beard."

I was raging when she said this to me,

for those of you that don't understand Ulster Scotch,

that's not very happy, right?

Raging.

I'm bilingual.

APPLAUSE

So, she says to me, "You need to cut your hair and shave the beard."

I says, "Look, no way, what about all the other women

"that work in this place, you're not making them cut their hair."

She said, "You need to tie it up because the hospital policy says

"you can't have hair touching your uniform", to which I replied,

"Does that mean I have to shave my back?"

Made her feel a bit uncomfortable and, while I was on a roll,

I thought, "OK, I will shave my beard,

"as soon as you go down there and speak to Eileen, right,

"because she's got facial hair a grizzly bear would be proud of

"and she's starting to freak the kids out!"

APPLAUSE

I'm not here to judge anybody, because we live in a world now

where we've to be so careful of everything we say,

that's unless you come from the middle of East Tyrone,

where if you're a big-handed, over-sized mountain man of a hallion,

which is my Aunt Josie,

you can say anything and get away with it.

Now, I come down to the city here and I fit rightly in down here.

I look around this room and I think I look normal

compared to some of youse that I see in here.

Back home in the middle of East Tyrone, in Coalisland,

I'm actually described as one of two things,

either a weirdo or a homo.

And that's my Aunt Josie who calls me those things!

Some people say she's the most ignorant man who ever lived.

My granny was the same and she learned all this stuff

from my granny. The funniest thing that my granny ever said, right,

we were sitting in the house one day, it was on the TV,

it was her husband had been charged with beating this woman

and he was given a sentence for grievous bodily harm

and only a granny could get away with saying this,

she turned round in her most sincere voice and said,

"Wouldn't you wonder what that woman did to drive that man to do that to her?"

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Ever a fan of domestic violence, my granny, yeah.

Ladies and gentlemen, I've been Kevin O'Neill,

thanks for listening, you've been a wonderful audience, good night.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Now this is the studio scene dock.

-Now if you're one of those techy

-BLEEPS

-like me

-then this is the place where...

-Just stop it there, mate, just stop it.

-Why, what's up?

-The line is techy folks,

-you can't say techy

-BLEEPS,

-it's techy folks.

-Techy

-BLEEPS?

Folks, as in plural for folk.

-Folllks.

-BLEEP.

-I didn't say

-BLEEP,

-I said

-BLEEP,

-that's what I said,

-I said folks.

-You can't say

-BLEEP.

-I didn't say

-BLEEP.

-F-O-L-K-S.

-This is for all you Belfast

-BLEEPers

-- Liam Watson.

APPLAUSE

Hello, Sketchy audience, having a good night so far?

-AUDIENCE:

-Yes.

-Good stuff. My night got off to a strange start

when I was in the taxi, the driver tried to sell me

pirate DVDs from under the passenger seat,

I was relieved when I figured out what he was talking about

cos I thought he was trying to chat me up, you know,

we were driving along and he goes, "Do you like romantic comedies?"

But it was nice, it reminded me of the old illegal taxi drivers

during the Troubles, "Here's a cop, stick your seatbelt on,

"I'm your uncle Anto from Coolnasilla if they ask you,

"I'm your uncle". I used to go with a girl

from the Malone Road about ten years ago, right?

Now, I'm from Lenadoon in West Belfast,

the local taxi came over to pick me up and the driver went down

the private road by mistake and a local Malone Road patron came out

to put him straight and said, "Excuse me, this is a private road."

He says "This is a bucking private taxi, you don't hear me shouting about it!"

The big thing going on in my life at the minute,

is that I've just become a father recently.

APPLAUSE

Thank you very much, yeah.

It's brilliant, I've always wanted to pass all my faults

and shortcomings on to another generation and this is my big chance, so I'm delighted.

But me being me, I started worrying straightaway, you know,

the responsibility, I'm like, "I hope he gets my eyes

"and not my irrational fear of choking, you know?"

You want the best for your children, you know?

I read about these parents who put headphones

on the mother's belly and play classical music,

Tchaikovsky and Mozart, and it's good for the baby's brain development

and all this kind of stuff.

I thought, "Yeah, that sounds good," so me and my partner,

I got her, I got the iPod and the wee headphones

and put them on her belly and played tapes

of how to change your own nappy.

I forgot about nappies when we were planning it, you know?

You think of all the cute "goo goo gaga" stuff and then

I was in my sister's house and she was changing her daughter's nappy

and I was like, "Cancel it, I don't think I can do it, it's disgusting."

It doesn't faze on her, you know?

She's changing the baby's nappy and she's doing all the...

you know the cutie kind of talk? "Who poohed themselves?

"Who's got a dirty bum?"

And I'm thinking, "She'll keep doing it

"if you talk to her like that, you know?"

You're encouraging it, you should be berating her, if anything.

"You've shit yourself again.

"You loser."

Like, my sister has loads of kids.

I've been around babies all my life,

and babies cry, and you just think, "Well, babies cry,"

but when it's your own son crying, it breaks my heart.

I can't stand it, you know?

There comes a time you will do anything to stop the baby crying,

anything you can do,

and we figured out that baths sort of calm him down

and God forgive us, he's getting about six baths a day.

He's like Benjamin Button, he's so wrinkly, you know?

But the best thing ever that we found was one of these baby carriers.

I would do an advert for the thing. It is unbelievable.

You put the newborn baby in that

and he's all, like, kind of snuggled up against you,

and you strap it on and you go for a walk

and he's asleep in, like, two minutes, right? Unbelievable.

The only thing is,

if you go for a long walk with one of these things on you,

and you have to take a piss,

you really just have to take a piss with the baby strapped onto you.

It's not like you can leave him

on a seat in Starbucks on his own, you know?

The carrier doesn't really lend itself to being

hung on the back of a toilet door, or something.

And obviously, you go into the cubicle, you know?

If you're standing at a urinal with a baby strapped to your front,

if there was a guy next to you,

the baby would be able to look him right in the eye!

Nobody wants that! So you go into the cubicle and you lock the door

and in the whole process,

I don't know, somehow he feels a disturbance in the force, you know?

And then you have to talk to him to calm him down

so you can finish,

but it suddenly occurred to me that someone outside the cubicle

would hear a conversation that goes like this.

"Psh-ssh....

"All right, big fella!

"Somebody's awake.

"Pssh-sssh.

"Och, what's the matter?

"Ps-ssh. Good boy.

"Give your daddy a kiss."

Of course, as long as you say, "big fella" and not "wee man",

you can still come out of it looking OK.

I've been Liam Watson. I hope you've enjoyed it.

Thanks very much. CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Do you ever get that feeling that you're not quite sure... What is it?

But you're not... Sorry.

Do you...

Oops. Sorry.

Do you ever feel that you...

HE GIGGLES

Shane Todd.

Whoa!

Thanks.

How's everyone? All right, yeah?

-AUDIENCE:

-Yeah.

Good. Give me a shout if you're on Facebook.

-Anybody on Facebook? AUDIENCE:

-Woo!

If you're over 60 and on Facebook, give me a shout.

My dad is 61, but a week ago he came up to me

and in a very odd way said, "Can you get me on the Facebook?"

I said, "I'll get you on and let you know what's happening,"

cos he can't work computers and he's a bit senile.

He's 61...

And he's also quite confrontational, and the two mixed...

Whenever I went up to him a couple of days after this

and said, "Here, John up the street wrote on your wall."

"He did what?!"

My dad starts filling up a bucket with Fairy Liquid

and a wire brush.

"Tell me this - what did he do that with?"

"Obviously just his mouse."

We live next door to a woman called Sheila, who's about 95,

and I was like,

"By the way, Sheila poked you when you were sleeping last night."

He said, "That wouldn't be the first time, mate."

Nice to be here, though.

The worst gig - I just want to tell you about the worst gig I ever did -

was in Dungannon, the comedy hotspot,

and on the way up... It started terribly.

This was about two years ago. It started terribly.

Do we all remember the snow that comes once a year

and it's just a nightmare and a massive inconvenience,

especially if you're driving?

I see the snow like a mental ex-girlfriend

in that twice a year, you go down to your living room,

pull back your curtains and it's just there in your front garden.

And your first thought is, "I'm going to have to take a spade to that."

Then you think, "I may as well wrap up and have a play in it."

But this gig in Dungannon was a talent show

and I normally just do stand-up gigs or something like this

but it was a talent show so I thought I'd do it.

The prize was a grand. I thought there would be other comedians

but it was a real working man's pub

and it was 14-year-old girls singing Rihanna songs

for the pleasure of 50-year-old farmers, right, is what it was,

and I strolled on to do a bit of stand-up.

I was supposed to do 20 minutes but I did about seven and a half seconds

and said, "If you all give me a massive round of applause,

"I'll just leave,"

and they took the roof off the place, right?

I thought, "What a nightmare!"

And what actually went wrong with the gig was,

I was waiting to come on and unlike Diarmuid,

who brought me on very nicely,

the barman was in charge of bringing the acts on,

and I was the first act on. There had never been comedy at this bar before

so I'm waiting in the wings behind the curtain to come on

and this guy took the microphone, a big, hard intimidating guy.

People were talking and instead of going, "Keep the noise down a bit,"

he took the microphone and started, right?

He took the mike and goes, "Ay, ay, ay!"

And then he said this -

and I'll never forget this as an introduction to a gig, ever -

he said,

"We've a wee mad fella here

"going to try a bit of stand-up comedy."

And it was an absolute nightmare.

Not one laugh the entire way through.

On the way out, this guy stopped me, he had a camera and he said,

"Can I take your photo for the Tyrone Courier newspaper?"

Yes, ladies,

I'm that guy, page 34.

And I was like, "Course you can,"

and thought, "Don't just stand there like the gig hasn't gone well.

"As a bit of a laugh, over-enthusiastically pose, right?"

It didn't get a laugh but I posed like this, right,

like big stupid grin, right? The thumbs-up.

And forgot about the gig, just left and did go home and forget about it.

About a week later, my mate James from Dungannon phoned me

and said, "Are you sitting down?"

I said, "Yeah."

He said, "You're in the Tyrone Courier this week."

I'm living the dream, that's what I'm doing!

I said, "Is it just a bit of text as to who was in the competition,

"who won and that sort of thing?"

He said, "No, no, no. It's a full-page photo of you

"with the caption:

"Shane Todd Tried To Make 'Em Laugh"!

Youse have been amazing, I'm Shane Todd, thank you very much.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Well, there you have it. Tonight, we've seen...

-PHONE RINGS

-Oh, sorry that's me..

Well, there you have it.

-Tonight, we have seen some of the moremost new comedians...

-Cut!

-What? What now?

-It's foremost.

-What did I say?

-Moremost.

Tonight, we've seen some of the moremost... I did it again. Sorry.

Tonight, we've seen some of the Mormons... One of the Mermen...

Ethel Merman.

Foremost.

Well, there you have it. Tonight, we've seen...

HOOVER WHIRS

Well, there you have it. Tonight, we've seen some of the foremost

new stand-up comedians this country has to offer,

and I know we'll be hearing a hell of a lot more from them

in the very near future.

I've been Diarmuid Corr. Thanks for watching and, goodnight.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd