Culture That Made Me: Tadhg Hickey on Ricky Gervais, Steve Coogan, and John Pilger
Tadhg Hickey will soon do a stand-up tour of Britain and Ireland, including Cork Opera House. Picture: Cathal Noonan
Tadhg Hickey, 40, grew up on College Road, Cork. He is a comedian, actor and writer. His razor-sharp political comedy stetches have amassed millions of views online.
- The dates of his upcoming stand-up tour of Britain and Ireland include Cork Opera House, on September 28. See: www.tadhghickey.com.
It’s hard to move beyond The Office, the English version. What Ricky Gervais had going with Stephen Merchant was pure magic. The way it was written, the way it was shot, the way it was performed. Sure, Gervais took elements from other people on the way up like Larry Sanders, but he created something new. It felt like everything was different after watching it. It emboldened me. For lots of comics coming through in that period, we realised: OK, I don't have to be big and ostentatious to get laughs. I can sit into this subtle type of comedy storytelling. It was inspirational.
Reading JD Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye at school stopped me in my tracks. It felt like I could almost be this guy in the novel. It had a psychological depth I hadn't discovered before. I thought books before that point were like stories. I didn't realise they could penetrate psychology so much. Even the idea of calling somebody a “phony” was revelatory to me. I looked at people in my life as well who were fastidious and religious in the community I was growing up in and thought I don’t buy this. I don’t think they are actually great people. This book seemed to call it out. Then you're also left wondering towards the end: what's so good about this guy? You’re left appraising his psychology and outlook on life as well. It blew my head off.
I was astounded by Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These. I’m writing a memoir at the moment and it was a sobering experience to read what it is to be a master craftsperson who's writing something that doesn't have to be filled with difficult-to-decipher words or sentences. It's just in the poetry of the lines. It’s a beautifully poignant description of the human condition. It's a period in Irish history – the Magdalen Laundries period – that's hard to capture with the sensitivity and emotion that she does. She brings sadness and anger and futility to life so beautifully.
In university, I was taken with James Joyce’s Ulysses. When you move past all the esoteric stuff in Ulysses, you're left with a warm, beautiful story about the human condition. It has a heart-warming aspect that impressed me more than Joyce’s experimental, audacious writing. The humanity of Bloom struck me. The humanity of Molly and her description of what it is to be a woman and her thoughts in that period in Ireland hasn’t been matched. And I do like a good arrogant writer, and Joyce is probably the most arrogant writer of all time.
There's a black author in Birmingham called Kehinde Andrews. He has written a book called The New Age of Empire: How Racism and Colonialism Still Rule the World. This guy is marvellous. I discovered him by watching Piers Morgan interviews on morning television, which is basically right-wing English people getting hysterical about various topics, with Piers Morgan getting particularly hot and bothered. Kehinde Andrews is on the show and he’s this cool-headed, logical authority on colonialism. He speaks truth to power – to the British establishment, particularly the right-wing press who want to portray colonialism as this civilising mission, and that they never did anything but good.
I love Alan Partridge. It's one thing to do a pompous character, but it has to be supported with detail of what that guy is like outside of the insults. Steve Coogan has this encyclopaedic understanding of what this guy is interested in outside of being a dick. He loves, say, the different petrol stations around Norwich, and the intricacies of the BBC administration. It's because the character feels so real and partly boring and cartoonish as well. The send-up of that Irish character that Steve Coogan did is a perfect example of that, the Martin Brennan character, where it feels like it's surreal, but it's also real enough to unnerve everyone, both sides of the divide. Pure genius.
There's a Swedish filmmaker called Roy Andersson. He makes commercials for a living. He saves up his money and then he builds his own sets and he makes experimental, largely comedy movies. They're surreal and dark. He’s got a trilogy. One of the films is called A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence. It's totally, knowingly pretentious. It's like Samuel Beckett on Ketamine – mad, weird modernist imagery, but with Beckettian concerns of, like, what are we doing here? Why are we still with each? We hate each. One character wants to kill herself; she wants to get away from her partner and the partner's dog, but then she has second thoughts because he's put on a roast. It’s dark, absurd humour.
There's a documentary on Netflix called Cuba and the Cameraman, about a filmmaker going back to Cuba on visits, that really struck me. Beginning in the 1970s, it shows how the country has evolved during revolution and transitions. It's so beautiful because he goes back to visit the same families year on year to see what they're up to. It's enchanting.
I watch a lot of John Pilger. He’s got a documentary called The War You Don't See, for example. It’s about the build-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the media's role in conspiring with the Americans and British to drive on even though the evidence wasn't there. Client journalism at play. He's a massive supporter of Julian Assange as well. As Pilger gets older – because he's such a distinguished journalist – people are trying to get him to go out to pasture, but he won’t go quietly. He's a fearless documentary-maker.
There’s a theatre company in Ireland called Corn Exchange. Their play Man of Valour is a one-man show. It's a superhero story about a guy working in an office. It's done effectively wordlessly. They use painted masks that they create themselves. They perform in this particularly stylised manner with big, big gestures. It’s French, gesture-type theatre. Paul Reid was the actor in it. I saw it over a decade ago. It was so energetic and experimental and completely new and exciting.
