Comedian thought US star’s gigs were prank

COMEDIAN Micky Bartlett says he thought someone was playing a “prank” on him when he heard that Kevin Hart was performing in Belfast.

Hollywood actor and comedian Hart has made Northern Ireland his home from home in recent months performing several stand-up shows.

He has appeared at Lavery’s, The Limelight and Ulster Hall and is doing a gig at the SSE Arena next month.

Co Armagh comedian Mickey Bartlett was as surprised as anyone to see him pop up in Northern Ireland, and even getting the chance to perform as support act for a number of his shows.

He told the Mirror: “It’s just crazy because I genuinely thought someone was playing a really elaborate prank on me until the very second Kevin Hart picked up a microphone in Lavery’s at the first gig.

“It was kind of a strange situation, it’s exciting. It’s such a great thing for comedy in Northern Ireland, everyone has been working so hard to get a good scene going.

“I think to have someone that big come over here and become a part of it for a short time, I would say it’s an honour and a privilege.”

With the pandemic hitting those in the entertainment industry pretty hard, the Lurgan man also reflected on the shocking moment he went from having a full year of gigs scheduled to having nothing, in a matter of minutes.

Micky, 35, said: “So I had an Australian tour, then I was going to New York, then I had another Australian tour and then I was going to the Edinburgh Fringe then my own shows here and that was all cancelled within an hour.

“So it was a proper sort of, like

Wall Street in 1929, everything just went at once. Then on top of that I had just finished a tour of Northern Ireland and I couldn’t get the money for it because no one could go into the office to pay the money out so I was literally sitting with like a fiver left in my overdraft, going what the f**k am I going to do?”

Mickey says he always wanted to work in comedy. He added : “I can remember when it came to the birds and the bees lesson in school, so I was about 12 or 13 and I remember already having ideas of being a comedian and when we were given that lesson I was thinking, ‘This is definitely going into the standup routine’, so it just took another 10 years.”

You can check out all of Micky’s latest tour dates on his Facebook page

I thought someone was playing a really elaborate prank