Farnan’s comic take on feminism

The market research people would struggle to find the demographic that Keith Farnan is aiming for with his latest comedy show, but that’s kind of how he likes it. The show is an exploration of feminism entitled ‘How much is that woman in the window?’.

“It’s almost a lose-lose situation. It’s a guy doing a show about women’s rights so you’ve got the men looking at you funny going, ‘Is this the kind of thing I’d go to on a Friday night?’ And the women looking at you suspiciously: ‘Let’s just see what you have to say for yourself.’

“It’s funny — there are a lot of women comedians coming through and very few of them are political. It’s very hard for women comedians to talk about women’s rights without everyone just rolling their eyes. It’s a hard enough industry to get into at any rate without boxing yourself into a corner. I can see why they’d want to avoid that. But it’s something that I wanted to talk about.”

The Cobh native enjoys tackling meaty subjects. Before burning bras, he performed other shows about the death penalty, immigrant rights and racism. Among his career highlights was a slot on Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow. It’s not surprising, perhaps, that there’s a serious bent to the funny man, who traded a legal career for more frivolous pursuits.

“Did you have a transplant? Did you get a human heart?” he says rhetorically when asked why he gave up law. “Nothing really happened. I’ve always had the two tiers running at the same time. I think after I qualified I just realised I really couldn’t do this for 40 years; I want to give stand-up a go to see if I could do that instead because it looks like a lot more fun.

“I always say this: it’s going well now but the first two years as a comedian was just poverty. I probably had less money than the Greek government has to put myself through those years. It was tough going, but then you start to plateau and build on shows and reputation and things start happening.”

Farnan parlayed one idea into a 40-minute RTÉ television documentary, which screened a couple of years ago, on the country’s economic ruin; it was entitled Money, Money, Money: Keith Farnan Versus the Economy. The lesson he took away from his investigation of the debacle is that “nothing has changed”.

Farnan’s jaundiced view of the world of finance found favour with the judges of Fishamble’s popular Tiny Plays project, as he was one of the winning entries in the inaugural competition. His play will be staged this month, and is a two-minute farce about a huckstering bank and one of its unfortunate customers. He’s also been commissioned to write a longer play, The Last Stevedore. It’s a meditation on masculinity and the disappearing world of docklands life.

Farnan grew up by the shore in Cobh, Co Cork. His father, Pat Farnan, has just retired as harbour master of the port of Cork. Farnan mentions that his dad once brushed shoulders with one of his comedy idols.

“The real rock’n’roll moment in our household was the day my dad was up in his gym in Cork and Dermot Morgan was in the treadmill next to him. I remember that being a moment: ‘That is so cool. I should go to the gym more’.”

*Keith Farnan’s show ‘How much is that woman in the window?’ runs from 8.15pm, Wednesday, Mar 6 to Saturday, Mar 9 at the Project Arts Centre in Dublin. Further information: www.keithfarnan.com.