The funny side of life and death
Comic Jarlath Regan’s stand-up show tackles organ donation — and, he says, it’s a laughing matter
THE lobby of Brooks Hotel is awash with shoppers rubbing their hands together over cups of hot chocolate and steaming pots of tea. In a small corner, away from the madding crowds, stands comedian and podcast impresario Jarlath Regan wearing a long woollen coat and scarf. Truth be told, he looks like something straight out of a Harry Potter movie. He has had a long day promoting his new stage show in Vicar Street and there is a weariness etched under his eyes. While many comics display a penchant for wild imbibing nights out, Regan’s battle scars are his badges of honour.
The fatigue he suffers is a mild side effect of the kidney he donated to save his brother Adrian’s life. But tiredness aside, Jarlath smiles and says he genuinely feels in the pink of health.
‘The body is great and I am in the best shape of my life,’ he insists. ‘They said to me before the surgery that most people who do this tend to be much more health conscious afterwards, because you regard your health as precious now. And that is definitely the case for me,’ he reveals.
‘I look back and wonder what the hell was I doing drinking all those pints. I was more surprised than anyone that my kidney was in the condition that it was in. It was apparently way above average and the kidney Adrian got is rocket powered.
‘The one I am left with is well able to take care of the work of two.’
Jarlath makes his experience sound easy. ‘The first six months, my energy tailed off a bit as there was some healing that needed to happen,’ he says, explaining how he felt after making the donation.
‘The only difference you really notice is fatigue and right now I feel back to 100 per cent,’ says Jarlath, who had the operation last January. ‘Today, I want people to know how important and amazing kidney donation is and also how easy it can be done. Should a family member or friend need a kidney, I am proof that you can be back on your feet after a live donation. In fact, I was back on stage in the 3Arena supporting Jack Whitehall two weeks after my operation,’ he reveals. ‘Granted, some people got in touch and said that wasn’t their experience, but it was mine.’
The comic, who produces and presents award-winning podcast An Irishman Abroad, was approached by his sibling Adrian last year to donate his kidney. He went ahead with the potentially fatal procedure, knowing only he could save Adrian.
‘It is something that you hope never comes calling but it does happen,’ he says. ‘There are people all over the country on dialysis, on transplant waiting lists, and the simple fact is we are not talking about it enough.’
THE 37-year-old penned his latest show, aptly called Organ Freeman, not just to raise awareness for live kidney transplants, but also to get people to consider carrying a donor card or discussing with their loved ones whether they would like to donate their organs in the event of their own deaths.
‘If anything positive comes out of this new show is that more people will talk about what might happen to their organs when they die. If you don’t carry a donor card then your next of kin can refuse to allow a donation. If you have told them it is your wish then they are more likely to do it,’ says Jarlath.
‘The nice thing about the podcast and the show is that I have had audience members get in touch to say they have put themselves forward to be donors so that is really special.’
Jarlath admits that up until his brother’s illness, he didn’t have a donor card himself.
‘I just didn’t think about it and that was all there was to it. You can send a text (to the Irish Donor Network) and they will have a text to you tomorrow. But you have to devote that little bit of time to thinking about something you might not want to think about.’
But, Jarlath says, it is a small miracle that almost everyone can do.
‘All of us would like to save a life,’ he says. ‘You have an opportunity to leave a legacy and yes, you may be gone and that is tragic, but imagine if you managed to save four other people’s lives with your lungs, liver, and kidneys. People often have an image of transplants being brutal procedures, but they are done with the exact same care and attention as if they were removing them while you are alive. Being an organ donor in no way affects your funeral.’
IF anything Jarlath, who has a six-year-old son, hopes his story will change any preconceived negative views of organ donation. He believes that Irish people still have a ‘head in the ground’ attitude to death and donation, rather than looking at it as an opportunity to give others a second chance at life.
‘We tend to ignore death even when it is right there. I tell people to introduce it into conversation at dinner. Ask the family what their feelings are towards donor cards. Then you’ve put the subject out there, rather than starting with, “when I die I want you to chop out my heart”.
‘You won’t get around to the fact that there is probably a young person in hospital as you are speaking in need of a pair of lungs and it’s horrendous to think you would deny them that chance of living.’ Despite his clear views on the subject, Jarlath says he was not without his doubts before the life-changing operation. ‘As with any major surgery, something could have gone wrong for me. As a father and a husband I took my life into my hands to help my brother. My wife has had her own health issues as has my son, so it was a big roll of the dice in some ways, but I was in safe hands with some of the best doctors in the world from the Mayo Clinic (in Minnesota).’
Today, Jarlath’s brother, who coowns and runs Hunter Valley stud farm in Kentucky, is thriving.
And from great sacrifice and potential tragedy the comic has managed to see the lighter side of the situation in his new stand up show.
‘The show I have written is about live donation, about possibly losing a sibling and jumping at the opportunity to do something, before realising how complicated it actually is,’ he reveals. ‘It is about what is involved with your mentality and your life and incredibly that is where the jokes come from.
‘There are no other comedy shows like this. I never went into this with the attitude that I would get a show out of it, I suppose it just organically happened. When you are a comic, just the same as if you were a song writer, you write about your life and it is an absurd situation to find yourself in,’ he admits.
‘The show is about family and how no family is perfect or will be together forever. It’s about the calculations you have to make to do the right thing. If you want a different stand up show, this is a story about a miraculous thing and that’s what we have,’ says Jarlath.
‘There is a tension that is built up which needs to be released within moments through jokes and that is what happens through telling sto-
ries,’ he explains. ‘We go to a very dark place, we laugh and go further, safe in the knowledge that we will laugh before we get there. And when it is near death, that is the craft of stand-up — to make it funny.
‘Unfortunately my brother hasn’t seen it and I don’t think he will, he lives in America. There are talks to bring it to the Just For Laughs Festival on Montreal so you never know, maybe he will.’
His stand-up show is not the only one of Jarlath’s projects receiving rave reviews. His weekly podcast series, An Irishman Abroad, has been lauded by critics worldwide and continues to pull in big name interviews, from Gabriel Byrne to Bob Geldof.
‘It is one of the biggest podcasts going. When we started I used to have to explain to people what it was,’ he says. ‘We planted our flag nice and early and we have managed to put out an episode every Sunday for four years and I can’t believe that.
‘People don’t see me hammering away, keeping the guests going and the dogged hard work that goes on behind the show. We have a white board in the office which has names lists — some are well known and others are not — because sometimes the lesser known people have better stories to tell,’ he reveals.
And it seems embarking on the live tour is not keeping Jarlath from his podcasts, which, he admits, started out as a hobby more than anything else.
‘Who knows what the future of this thing is. We have 220 episodes and a major sponsor on board and it is now responsible for 50 per cent of my income,’ he says, adding that all episodes are now available on an app.
‘This started out as good craic and I think the future is that major media companies will start bringing independent podcasts under their wings. I have certainly been approached and I am still taking offers from major media companies. I kind of think, why would I do that when we have got where we are on our own — but who knows, we are still talking.’
And conversation, it seems, is something Jarlath is very, very good at.
ORGAN Freeman is at Dublin’s Vicar Street on January 12. See vicarstreet.com for tickets and more details.