Do you find Tommy Tiernan funny?

Tarzana2

Billy86 wrote: »

His earlier stuff had some very good moments, but on the whole... no. He tries too hard, and ha become a caricature of himself. That Dylan fella he went to school with though, is the finest stand up this country has ever produced and one of the best from anywhere in the last 20 years, or possibly ever.

I love Dylan but was at his show in Vicar Street at the weekend, and whilst I did laugh a lot, it wasn't hugely memorable. Slightly seemed like he was going through the motions.

Tarzana2

Dominick Square Sprawl wrote: »

Because he has sold so concert tickets, it isn't up for debate whether or not he is funny?

By that rationale, it isn't up for debate whether Andrew Dice Clay is funny, as he's sold a lot more tickets and Tiernan ever has.

It's up for debate but only up to a point:

A: I like X comedian
B: He's not funny.
A: I find him funny, he makes me laugh
B: Well, you're wrong

Nowhere really to go from there really, is there?

And Tiernan won't be making stuff up as he goes along. His shows will be honed and practiced like any other. He might do the odd bit of improv but any comedian needs to be able to do this. Dylan Moran generally doesn't like audience interaction but he did it at the last show of his that I was at.

Billy86

Tarzana2 wrote: »

I love Dylan but was at his show in Vicar Street at the weekend, and whilst I did laugh a lot, it wasn't hugely memorable. Slightly seemed like he was going through the motions.

To be fair he was a little like that when I saw him at the comedy festival in Iveagh Gardens two years ago (and randomly, who else strolled in and sat 3-4 seats away from my mate & I but Johnny Vegas :pac: - we thought it random at the time, but he was probably shooting Moone Boy). I had seen him three times before that and had at times been in pain from laughter though, so who knows?

johnny osbourne

what team does tommy support?

i'd love to go to the pub with him to watch a match

Billy86

Dominick Square Sprawl wrote: »

You and I have very different definitions of 'genius'. I love good stand ups, but I wouldn't consider any of their work genius - not Richard Pryor, not George Carlin, not Lenny Bruce - and I've listened to hours and hours of all those guys.

You would probably need to be an NFL fan to appreciate this bit, but in a literary sense, this is indeed absolutely genius, especially from 4:00 on.

Jamsiek

Schwiiing wrote: »

You could say all that about Mrs Browns Boys yet it still wins BAFTAs. People like what they like. If you don't like it don't watch it or go to his shows. Simples.

That's why I don't go. I went once and didn't laugh once, found him annoying.

voz es

Aspects of his humor can be side splitting but he balances out as a twat.

Mr.Crinklewood

He's good at shouting, cursing and slagging off the Catholic Church.

se02orqua5xz9v

NachoBusiness wrote: »

Tommy is of course funny, and naturally very funny at that (as opposed to some comedians who need to work hard at it).

Since when is working hard a bad thing when it comes to performance? If you are charging a thousand people €45 each - as Tiernan regularly does - I would expect a certain amount of hard work to have gone in to your act.

I don't want someone just wandering in on stage and making stuff up as he goes, like a funny uncle.

JustTheOne

Bolente Ben wrote: »

He used to be funny a longg long time ago. It's similar to how the Simpsons and Friends became unfunny. He's trying to hard to be funny and has forgotten what made him funny in the fIrst place.

I think for his own development he needs to drop Irish jokes and any type of routine which involves shouting.

If anyone has been to his shows in he last 5 years they will see he is dropped the shouting part.

I think he became really famous and talked about after loose but then his follow up show which was hugely anticipated was a huge let down.

It was when he would have had the most interest and people going to see him for the first time. This really put a lot of new people off and he never recovered from that. Think it was around 07/08.

But as I have said his new stuff in the last few years has been a return to form. No shouting just telling hilarious stories.

speedboatchase

Never understood the appeal. In general I think comedians who have to shout or swear in their punchlines are compensating for a lack of material. Also, I feel like I can see him trying. Hard to explain but I just don't think he's naturally funny or quick-witted.

IamtheWalrus

jungleman wrote: »

The police. I'm afraid there's been a terrible accident.

Really?

dibkins

He glared at me in the street on day caus i was looking at him trying to figure out who he was (i had seen him in father ted) so he is pretty much my arch nemisis. Also, one day in Sligo a fella who looked sort of like him glared at me too - it might have been him again.

Crooked Jack

Dominick Square Sprawl wrote: »

A YouTube channel I follow recently uploaded a clip of Tommy Tiernan performing at the Just for Laughs festival in Montreal a few years ago. I'd seen the footage before, but not for a while.

It made obvious to me what I've believed for many years now - that Tommy Tiernan simply isn't funny, and that his success is derived from a series of 'tricks' i.e. pacing around the stage, vigorous hand gestures, excessive use of volume (e.g. shouting at the end of a sentence) and, of course, swearing.

I see no craft, no wit, no quality to any of his material. There isn't a single line that, were you to write it down on a piece of paper, you could pinpoint where the "funny bit" is.

I remember, in secondary school, when Tiernan's popularity exploded. All the lads would quote his first DVD, but I never once understood why they liked him so much.

I'm not convinced it was a mixture of Emperor's New Clothes syndrome mixed with mass delusion.

No one wanted to be the one person who didn't laugh at Tommy Tiernan, so they all 'laughed'. After a while, the forced laughter seemed natural, because people had convinced themselves Tiernan was funny.

There are so many great stand up comedians out there, who write proper jokes, with a feedline and a punchline, but Tiernan doesn't seem to ever do this.

Or am I wrong? Is Tiernan really that funny?

So when you take a joke out of context, remove all the other stuff that every other comedian uses (gestures, pacing volume etc...) write it down on a piece of paper and look at it it isnt funny?

Well I'll be damned :rolleyes:

Crooked Jack

Tommy Tiernan started out as a straight comedian but has gradually evolved into what could be best described as a modern day seanchaí.
Stand up is a very broad church allowing for endless different styles and Tommy, in many ways, is occupying a plane of his own.
He is, in my opinion, one of the finest comedians ever.

Crooked Jack

Also, his Just for Laughs stuff is hardly a fair representation of his material as he has to change the content and style fairly significantly for an international audience

crazygeryy

i think he is brilliant.as with all comedians some people love them some people hate them.
this in my opinion is a better example of how funny he can be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v--fTVAWE8

JustTheOne

crazygeryy wrote: »

i think he is brilliant.as with all comedians some people love them some people hate them.
this in my opinion is a better example of how funny he can be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v--fTVAWE8

Brilliant!

kunst nugget

speedboatchase wrote: »

Never understood the appeal. In general I think comedians who have to shout or swear in their punchlines are compensating for a lack of material.

Billy Connolly and Bill Burr both do that and they'd be some of the best comedians out there imo. Maybe you can only do it if your name is Bill…

Crooked Jack

speedboatchase wrote: »

Never understood the appeal. In general I think comedians who have to shout or swear in their punchlines are compensating for a lack of material. Also, I feel like I can see him trying. Hard to explain but I just don't think he's naturally funny or quick-witted.

In general I think people who say things like this don't understand stand-up comedy.
It reminds me of all the people who got their panties in a twist over Frankie Boyle performing at Feile an Phobail.

akelly02

dodderangler wrote: »

The one with the drug Olympics was ridiculously funny

i think literally that is his funniest joke...his only funny joke really, i dread him as a whole.

Barely There

Bolente Ben wrote: »

He used to be funny a longg long time ago. It's similar to how the Simpsons and Friends became unfunny. He's trying to hard to be funny and has forgotten what made him funny in the fIrst place.

I think for his own development he needs to drop Irish jokes and any type of routine which involves shouting.

I think it's the opposite tbh.

When he first started out he was inventive, surreal and very clever but within a very short period as he began to get more popular he realised he was able to get cheap laughs by just shouting out 'Fcuk' really loudly.

The main problem with him was the audience he began to attract, a braying band of numbskulls who wanted their laughs cheap and to the point.

For whatever reasons (money and fame most likely) he abandoned any comedic notions he had began to play to this audience.

You look at Dylan Moran and you can see a comedian who followed his own path.

Shame really as TT had potential. He just chose to piss it away on morons.

Crooked Jack

Barely There wrote: »

I think it's the opposite tbh.

When he first started out he was inventive, surreal and very clever but within a very short period as he began to get more popular he realised he was able to get cheap laughs by just shouting out 'Fcuk' really loudly.

The main problem with him was the audience he began to attract, a braying band of numbskulls who wanted their laughs cheap and to the point.

For whatever reasons (money and fame most likely) he abandoned any comedic notions he had began to play to this audience.

You look at Dylan Moran and you can see a comedian who followed his own path.

Shame really as TT had potential. He just chose to piss it away on morons.

Have you seen any of his shows in the last, say, five years?
They are very much his own thing and not pandering to anyone. I saw him in Silverbridge and the show was incredible. The entire stage was black except for a single beam of light in the centre that he would stalk in and out of. It took an almost religious feel at times as he conducted hymns and the like. Definitely not pandering to anyone, least of all morons.

Barely There

Crooked Jack wrote: »

Have you seen any of his shows in the last, say, five years?

Nope, probably last saw him live in early 2002 when his downward spiral was in full-flow. I couldn't believe how bad he'd gotten so quickly.
This was no gradual decline.

I'd wouldn't go to see him live now if he was playing in my front garden.

Anytime I've seen or heard him in the interim on tv shows/dvds/radio have assured me that I'm not making an error.

I really hate him now and I think that's mostly due to the potential he pissed away.

If he'd been sh;t from the outset I wouldn't really care.

Pink Lemons

Tarzana2 wrote: »

And Tiernan won't be making stuff up as he goes along. His shows will be honed and practiced like any other. He might do the odd bit of improv but any comedian needs to be able to do this.

His new stuff is 100% improv. I was watching an interview with him and was saying how he got bored with doing the same set over and over again, so now he could completely bomb one night and kill the next. Quite a brave thing to do really, and not the easiest thing in the world to do. RTE had a documentary about him as well last year about the same subject, it was when he just started the improv thing so was more bombing than killing.

NachoBusiness

Dominick Square Sprawl wrote: »

Since when is working hard a bad thing when it comes to performance? If you are charging a thousand people €45 each - as Tiernan regularly does - I would expect a certain amount of hard work to have gone in to your act.

I don't want someone just wandering in on stage and making stuff up as he goes, like a funny uncle.

How did you get that from what I said?

I never said that working hard was a bad thing. I said that some comedians are naturally funny and some are not. There are comedians that when people who grew up with them hear that they went on to become comedians, are perplexed as they never were funny at all and then there are the type of comedians that people are not in the least bit surprised to hear it about as they had been making people laugh all through the youth. Tommy, imo, is that type of comedian, as he has a natural ability to make people laugh as opposed to some who very much do not.

briany

Tarzana2 wrote: »

TV Burp was excellent though, to me at least.

Not disputing that, but it seems like he's been presenting it so long that it would be easy for people to forget that he's also one of the most accomplished standup acts of the last 30 years or more.

Ush1

Dominick Square Sprawl wrote: »

As I said before, it's Emperor's New Clothes syndrome.

That, mixed with mass delusion.

No one wanted to be the one person who didn't laugh at Tommy Tiernan, so they all 'laughed'. After a while, the forced laughter seemed natural, because people had convinced themselves Tiernan was funny.

There is a reason people like Dara O Briain, who is no less Irish than Tiernan, is massive in Britain, and Tiernan is only massive among Irish expats living abroad (though he was on the cusp of international fame when he won the Perrier back in the 1990s).

O Briain is simply a much smarter, harder-working and objectively better comedian.

This is definitely a real thing.

I was forced to go see John Bishop with the wife doing a show in the o2 and the crowd were all laughing like mad.

There was annoying middle aged women next to me and they were literally laughing at every word he said. Didn't need to be a joke or punchline, just constant giggling.

Chain Smoker

I think he's capable of being extremely funny, his very early stuff had some great comedic sensibilities but he hadn't the performance side of things down. Would say as a performer he's mostly improved throughout his career up as far as whenever I lost track but the material definitely took a bit of a nosedive. One big problem is that I'd say he suits a smaller size venue than he typically would fill, and with 8 kids or whatever it is to feed, it's hard to begrudge him that.

I'd really like to see a live set of him these days though, ideally performing pretty new material, have a feeling he's someone who, despite delivering the same material, could great one night and terrible another. Stewart Lee has said something along the lines that after 2 months of performing material, he begins to find it slipping into a repetitive routine that removes a lot of the life from show, I feel like Tommy Tiernan really suffers from something along those lines.



Eh, that's quite rambly, basically I'm saying I think he's good at something but there doesn't seem to a perfect place for him to occupy and still make a living from it.

NachoBusiness

Dominick Square Sprawl wrote: »

You and I have very different definitions of 'genius'. I love good stand ups, but I wouldn't consider any of their work genius - not Richard Pryor, not George Carlin, not Lenny Bruce - and I've listened to hours and hours of all those guys.

Did you miss:

Many bands have one or two great albums and never go on to produce anything close to their best again. No reason why it shoukd be different for comedians. Only the very best are great up until the end.

With the above I am clearly saying that Tommy is not in the league of the comedians you mention.

Because he has sold so concert tickets, it isn't up for debate whether or not he is funny?

No, it isn't up for debate as he has won the Perrier Comedy Award, Best Stand-Up at the British Comedy Awards, People Choice Award at the Edinburgh Comedy Festival etc etc. They don't give these awards out for the craic. Well, actually they do, now that I think about it.

Look, you will find people who think the Beatles were crap. That DeNiro can't act. Etc etc. But it doesn't mean, because of that fact, that it's up for debate whether or not The Beatles were good or that DeNiro could act. These things are a given at a certain point, and imo, Tiernan reached that point long ago with regards to his comedy chops. You can stamp your foot and cry it's 'Emperor's New Clothes syndrome' as much as you like, but that won't make it so I'm afraid.