On the Couch
Cavan comic Kevin McGahern rst came to TV viewers’ attention as the ringmaster of the madness that was Republic of Telly; since then, he has continued in stand-up as well as radio and TV and this week, he stars (along with Dave Co ey, Sophie Shanley, Peter McGann and Pearl O’Rourke) in RTÉ Player’s new animated podcast, Talking It Out, starting on January 12
How much TV do you think you watch every week?
Well it depends if you mean in terms of turning on the telly to see what’s on or downloads or streaming. We tend to watch a lot more lms on our house, unless we’re doing a binge of a show. Otherwise, we’d nearly watch a lm a night, which might be a bit excessive. With binge-watching a show, we will watch it until it’s a dead horse, even if it’s not a good show. We really got into The Walking Dead for a while because my wife and I are both fans of the old Romero zombie movies, and we were both like ‘ This is brilliant!’ and then you reach season seven and turn to each other and go ‘ This is sh*t!’
Was there anyone you watched on TV when you were younger that led you to think you want to work on TV too?
Yeah, I remember seeing Robin Williams on chat shows and he just blew my mind – I didn’t think anyone could be that funny. Jim Carrey too was always very good on chat shows. When you thought about comedians on telly, you thought about people like Dave Allen or Des O’Connor – men in suits sitting on a stool, so it wasn’t until later, when the likes of Steve Martin came along that I thought that comedy is something you could really do.
Has the TV comedy panel show disappeared in Ireland?
I was never one for panel shows that were like every other panel show – I liked Vic and Bob’s show and I love Would I Lie to You? That’s a wonderful concept for a chat show for comedians, because it’s basically a bullsh*tting competition and as the Irish are the best bullsh*tters in the world, we should have invented that show. Here, The Panel was great to introduce people to all the great comedians we have here and we haven’t had anything like that for a long time – please take note RTÉ!
What are your all-time favourite TV drama, comedy, soap, documentary and live TV event?
Drama, it’s a toss-up between The Sopranos and The Wire, I know that’s a very basic male answer; for comedy, the one I would re-watch the most is I’m Alan Partridge; soap, I don’t really watch them, but can I have Soupy Norman, which was a Polish soap that Barry Murphy and Mark Doherty redubbed and in a moment of madness, RTÉ put it on telly. It is the nest comedy we have ever put out; documentary – it has to be Windy City Heat, a comedy documentary about this guy who is set up in a four-week prank, where his friends convince him there’s a lm in Hollywood and he’s going to be the star and it is one of the funniest things I have ever seen; live TV event – the Calor Kosangas Housewife of the Year 1987.
What do you enjoy about the podcast?
I really love improv comedy, especially on radio – one of my favourite podcasts is Comedy Bang Bang, which is a longrunning comedy improv show. Then, the creators of Talking It Out did a kind of Joe Du y parody phone-in show, which allowed for these absolutely crazy characters, which I just loved, so I was delighted when they asked me to get involved with this animated version. You don’t know what Dave [Co ey, creator of Talking It Out ] is going to ask you and what your own head is going to come up with, so it’s just brilliantly scary to do.