Dylan Moran: ‘Britain is sending itself to its room and not coming down’
The comedian’s new show questions how to cope with the relentlessness of today’s politics. He discusses the ‘cult’ of Catholicism, his love of poetry and giving up his vices
“I’ve been doing this for a quarter of a century,” points out Dylan Moran. “I’m probably going to know about as much as I’m ever going to know on a working level. There’s a liberty in that.” It’s hard to believe so much time has passed since the Irish comic first shuffled on to the stage, cigarette and drink at the ready, and appeared not to know what on earth he was doing there. In 1996, aged 24, he became the youngest person to win the Perrier comedy award at the Edinburgh festival, and embarked on his first UK tour the year after. TV and film opportunities followed, often playing various iterations of his rumpled, grumpy stage persona: in the 1998 sitcom How Do You Want Me?, with the late Charlotte Coleman; a cameo as a shameless shoplifter in the Richard Curtis film Notting Hill; roles in the Simon Pegg vehicles Shaun of the Dead and Run, Fatboy, Run. More recently he’s appeared in the 2014 Irish film Calvary and the TV sitcom Uncle.
But the show he remains best known for is cult favourite Black Books, co-created with Graham Linehan, in which Moran took centre stage as the operatically bad-tempered secondhand bookshop owner Bernard Black, a petty tyrant to his sweet-natured assistant, played by Bill Bailey. An extended love letter to booze, fags, dusty bookshops and stubborn individuality, it ran for three series, from 2000 to 2004, and still inspires enormous affection.
Standup was like throwing my cards in the air – or trying on a suit that fits and it’s just perfect
This country has two zombie political parties having a pretend show of political debate that will never lead to anything
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