Patrick shows us the funny

PATRICK Monahan has been getting in a bit of practice for tomorrow’s comics versus Caley Thistle football match — far away in Finland.

Britain’s leading Irish-Iranian comic was appearing at a Finnish comedy festival last weekend where he had a foretaste of the first Inverness comedy festival, Happyness, now under way in the Highland Capital.

"For some reason everyone’s taken the same prototype like the Cat Laughs in Kilkenny in Ireland, where they have this four or five day festival," the Middlesbrough comic explained.

"Saturday they play a big football match with comedians against the local ice hockey team or local celebrities and it was just bonkers

"The team we were playing against were all six foot four and huge. The Finns all took their tops off and ran over and did a human pyramid because they were trying to outdo the comics, but we all had codewords so someone would say: ‘number one’ and we’d all run over to the left hand side of the pitch and line up then run along the pitch, all 11 of us.

"There was one point where our keeper, who is a big fat chubby guy, ran out when their striker was running on goal — and ran straight past the striker over to the touchline and went to grab a pizza and coke! It must have been like watching a live sketch show on a football pitch.

"You couldn’t imagine this happening against Inverness Caledonian Thistle."

Which sort of sums up why festivals appeal to Monahan — handily enough as he will be one of the busiest comics at the first Happyness Festival, even appearing at both Eden Court and Mad Hatters both tonight and on Sunday.

"That’s the difference from doing the big festivals like Edinburgh, because you have these things during the day like a football match," he said.

"These things are one-offs. You can go to gigs every day, but you’ll never do that again."

At least in Inverness, he will not have a language obstacle to over come, though we might not be able to provide the Finns’ unseasonal late night entertainment.

"They did a late show, like Late and Live in Edinburgh, where three or four of us would do a show, then about 11pm they brought on this Finnish rock band, a big proper rock band that looked a bit like the Motley Crue, and they did Christmas carols for two hours — tattoos, leather, but spending two hours doing Christmas carols and all in Finnish," he said.

"That’s all part of the festival. Can you imagine trying to put that on in a normal night in Inverness? A rock band playing two hours of Christmas carols in May. I loved it."

As Monahan and his comedians prepare to face off against the Caley Thistle legends, the comedian laughingly agrees that perhaps these days little boys are more likely to grow up wanting to be stand-up comics than footballers.

"Exactly. They’ve probably seen it’s not a bad way to make a living," he said.

"You’re not getting up at 7am or 8am. Most of our commutes are in the afternoon. You miss a train at 1pm, you can always get one at 2pm, not a problem, and you start work at seven or eight at night."

Many television viewers will already have seen Monahan at work.

An experienced warm up man for shows including Paul O’Grady’s daytime chat show, where he made a number of appearances in front of the cameras, Monahan became a star in his own right when he entered and won ITV1’s comedy talent show "Show Me the Funny".

"The show was so secretive that none of the competitors had a clue what it was going to be like. It did scare some people, but I thought it was great," he said.

"It gave you a chance to go somewhere new every day or write your own material, but that’s what we do anyway, so it was quite good fun."

The show has certainly helped raise Monahan’s profile. After its broadcast he has found the number of people turning out to see him increase three or fourfold.

It also opened up new opportunities, like an invitation to perform in "Let’s Dance For Sports Relief", which saw him don a red wig, skimpy skirt and silver boob tube to dance to Rihanna’s "Only Girl In The World" on prime time Saturday evening BBC1.

"It gave you a chance to do things that you maybe would have done in the future," he said.

"I do love doing the circuit, but there’s only so much you can do on this circuit before you have to break off and do something else.

"If you want to get a bigger audience, you can do it by word of mouth, but that will only get you an extra half a dozen people. When you get on television, it doubles or trebles your audience overnight.

"The show was mental because you think you might stay on for a couple of weeks, but eventually you were through to the final. I never thought about winning it because the format was better for a quick fire comic. The problem with me is that I’m so used to doing 20 or 30 minutes or two hour shows that it’s easier for me to do 40 minutes instead of five. It takes me three minutes just to say hullo to a crowd."

Winning the show netted Monahan £100,000 in prize money, a solo tour and his own comedy DVD.

"That was great because I’d done seven Edinburgh shows and it was a case of picking the best bits for the DVD," he said.

"If I’d been younger, I’d have struggled to fill that. I was lucky. It was right place, right time for me."

• Patrick Monahan can be seen at the OneTouch Theatre, Eden Court from this evening to Sunday as part of the Happyness Comedy Festival and at Mad Hatters at Hootananny this evening and Sunday.

He will also be one of the comedians taking on Caley Thistle in a free match at Bught Park which kicks off at 4pm tomorrow.