Chat show host to hit the road

Patrick Kielty is planning a return to stand-up.

The comic wants to hit the road in the autumn, after the end of the next series of his BBC1 chat show, which starts on August 9.

He hasn't performed stand-up in 18 months, and fears he may need to do some work to sound fresh.

"I'd like to do some proper stand-up dates, in theatres," he said. "When you do a stand-up tour you have to have something to say. There's nothing worse than going out there with old material."

Kielty says he tries not to see many other comedians' acts: "You can tell by a band's record if they've listened to lot of Beatles music because the influence comes through. I try not to overdose too much on other comedians because little things start slipping into your act, and you can tell who is influenced by Python or whoever.

"When I'm writing stand-up I just try to keep to my own ideas because sometimes, subliminally, things seep in."

Patrick's own comedy heroes include Tommy Cooper and Billy Connolly. "He's developed through the Seventies when people like Frank Carson and Bernard Manning were doing stand-up and his stand-up is still really sharp and fresh nearly 30 years later.

"People like Tommy Cooper used to make me laugh as a kid ­ I'm sorry, silly Stuff makes me laugh. People standing in dog poo makes me laugh! I defy anyone to watch You've Been Framed and not at least chuckle once. Jackass is my show at the minute.

The 31-year-old confesses he was bullied into doing his first stand-up performance ("The school sports teacher bribed me to do the Christmas concert because he told me that he was going to drop me from the football team if I didn't.")

But the gig went well and, a few years later, the ante was upped when a keg of beer was the prize for the winner of the talent show at university,. "I won and it was like a process of reinforcement.

"If it hadn't have gone well I wouldn't be doing it now. There was no 'I WILL make people laugh', there was no real drive and ambition."

He got a 2:1 but soon realised there was more money to be made in stand-up than as a "trainee psychologist in a shirt and tie" and got his TV break when he took part in Comic Relief in 1995. Soon after that, the BBC in Belfast asked him to do the chat show and he hasn't looked back.

This is the fourth series of Patrick Kielty Almost Live and Patrick, like other chat show hosts, says the secret of a good interview is to listen.

"You sometimes find that comedians fall into the trap of trying to top their guest. If you've got a star on the show and they make a good joke some people feel a bit threatened and feel that they have give a good joke back.

"That's one of the things that Parkinson's very good at ­ he asks questions and then he lets people talk. Because mine is a comedy chat show I kind of think I'm just dabbling at this, someone's going to catch me out.What Parkinson does is a Talk Show whereas ours is a comedy show that has guests on."

Published: 20 Jul 2002