Laurence Falconer: 'I balance taking the piss out of the Germans by taking the piss out of the Irish'

When Dublin comedian Laurence Falconer followed love to rural Germany, he could never have imagined that his stories about German bureaucracy, blunt honesty, and Irish awkwardness would strike a chord, writes Colin Sheridan

Top of the Morgen! by Laurence Falconer is a collection of funny and moving observations into a memoir.

Laurence Falconer had just one request before our interview properly began: “Can you hear me?” Does he mean literally? Figuratively? Was he even addressing me, or was this some novel marketing ploy to sell his book? He was speaking to me, after all, from deep within the south west German state of Baden-Württemberg. A picture postcard landscape bordered by France and Switzerland. The birthplace of the automobile, no less, and a fairytale province that plays home to the Black Forest, Lake Constance, and the Swabian Alb. I almost expected his cry for help to be delivered with a Dublin-accented Alpine yodel.

The answer was yes, I could hear Laurence - eventually - after a few minutes of Zoom panic, echo loops, disappearing audio and mutual technological incompetence. By the end of our conversation I had resolved that, had the call indeed dropped, he would’ve just interviewed himself.