Des Bishop was in fine form on his return to Cork
Des Bishop may be living in New York at the moment, but when he comes to Cork he’s very much playing to a home audience.
The warmly-welcomed comedian lived on Leeside for an extended period from 1994, and his routine for the second of three sold-out nights at the Everyman is peppered with references to a city he knows intimately. Remember when McDonald’s was Mandys?
When Ballyphehane was a kip?
As with any comedy gig, if you book a set in the front rows, then you have to accept you’re in the line of fire. The first to be picked out is a young woman.
‘’What age are you?”
24.
“Does the Queens Old Castle mean anything to you? You know nothing.”
It’s all good fun and she becomes a handy foil through the night as Bishop expertly segues back to her with examples of how the world has changed.
Next victim is a man in his 30s, with a slightly different question. About where he had or hadn’t had a finger placed.
As the 43-year-old Irish-American points out, many of the tickets for the tour were sold after his Late Late Show routine. That was a clean excerpt from his live act. The family sitting in front of us obviously regret agreeing to the suggestion of ‘Let’s bring Mam and Dad to see Des Bishop’.
They sit stoney-faced through the finger talk, and by the end of a long segment on oral sex, are visibly shrinking in their seats.
Bishop talks dirty, talks funny and along the way slips in perspectives on consent, Liam Neeson and the bad rep straight white men are getting at the moment.
Wincing family aside, it’s mostly lapped up by an audience who still see him as one of their own, like.
