David O’Doherty's kids' books are dangerously funny

The author and illustrator of ‘Danger is Everywhere’ series have kids rolling in the aisles with laughter, writes Ellie O’Byrne

David O’Doherty stands on a chair in the middle of a library, his hair tousled, shouting into a microphone. Children are going berserk all around him.

At the top of the room, illustrator Chris Judge, armed with a flip-chart and a sharpie, is frenziedly live-drawing at O’Doherty’s command.

“Draw a camel, Chris!” O’Doherty calls. “Chris, your camel is really weird.” The children fall around laughing. “Shut up!” O’Doherty bellows at them. The kids are flabbergasted and delighted.

“I’m not a teacher, so I can say that.”

An appearance by the author and illustrator of the Danger is Everywhere book series is, in O’Doherty’s words, “somewhere between a stand-up experience and an episode of Jerry Springer,” a chaotic hour where the twin stars of O’Doherty and Judge, close friends but dispositional polar opposites, collide in an improvised world of childlike lunacy.

The duo has launched their third book, Danger REALLY is Everywhere: SCHOOL OF DANGER, with a series of appearances in the UK and Ireland. O’Doherty is well known for his stand-up comedy and TV appearances and Judge is an award-winning author and illustrator in his own right.

Author David O’Doherty speaking in Cork City Library as part of the Children’s Book Festival where he and Chris Judge, illustrator, met local schoolchildren to talk about their book

The obvious rapport between O’Doherty and Judge is born of a 15-year friendship. They met during what O’Doherty describes as the “weird lost few years after university where you’re finding out what to do. I was a fan of Chris’ band.”

Judge was the bass player for flash-in-the-pan Dublin popsters The Chalets, best known for their 2005 track ‘Nightrocker’, the theme tune for Gray’s Anatomy.

Touring out of the back of a van didn’t suit him and in 2006 the band folded and he returned to pursuing a successful career in illustrating: he’s the author of a popular trio of picture books for pre-schoolers based on his Lonely Beast character and has illustrated for Roddy Doyle.

“Chris is a still a very talented musician and can sing harmonies, which I am very jealous of. I would swap all of this to be able to be Enya,” O’Doherty, who has just finished touring the US with The Flight of the Conchords, says. They are crouched in a quiet corner next to a shelf of children’s bestsellers after their appearance.

“We should set a timer and record how long it takes for farts to come up. And if the kids don’t bring them up, I do,” O’Doherty says. In conversation, the pair are a muted version of the selves they present in their act: O’Doherty does most of the talking, while Judge is quieter and more reserved.

With Docter (sic) Noel Zone, the terrified anti-hero of their books, O’Doherty and Judge certainly seem to have tapped into a Dahlian subversion ideal for their target 7-11 age-group, when children start questioning the reasoning of the adults around them.

“What is life, if not the ongoing process of realising that everyone’s an idiot and no-one has a clue about anything?” O’Doherty says.

“So Docter Noel Zone is one of the first adult characters that would be called an unreliable narrator in grown-up literature, but what we would call an idiot. He’s just a wally; you can’t believe anything he says.”

Adults often think that the books’ ridiculously exaggerated dangers are mocking the health-and-safety conscious culture we now live in, but the truth is somewhere different: self-confessed scaredy-cats as children themselves, the pair are tapping into a catharsis of comedy that liberates children to laugh in the face of fear.

“I was a total chicken,” Judge says. “I think David was scared a lot but was actually much braver: he broke 14 bones as a child.”

“Well, I would do things like jump off shed roofs and stuff, but it was a different story after it got dark,” O’Doherty says.

“My granny lived in Achill Island and people there used to genuinely talk about banshees and fairies and all of that. This was a dark time: it was the era of moving statues, which scared the living bejaysus out of me. I had nightmares of waking up with 10 statues around me.”

Vivid memories of his own childhood are obviously the source of much of O’Doherty’s material, but Judge has a new muse in the form of his little girl, 2½-year-old Joey.

“Chris is amazing because he writes books for much younger children, so he can deal with people who are weeing themselves and screaming for their mums,” O’Doherty says.

“Well, I can deal with smaller groups of younger kids, but he can corral these large groups. I couldn’t go out there and do that,” Judge interjects.

O’Doherty starts thumbing through books in the shelf behind him; one is by Charlie Higson, formerly of The Fast Show. David Baddiel, David Walliams…many comedians seem to make the transition to children’s books. Is that because their sense of humour is innately childish?

“It’s not like there’s a better layer of comedy. The stuff I return to is Blackadder, Faulty Towers and The Fast Show. I guess there is a childishness to them, but maybe there’s just a childishness to laughing: farting and people falling over is funny.”