Dara Ó Briain

Presenter0:01

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio Podcasts. Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne, and this is the Desert Island Discs Podcast. Every week, I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book, and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. And, for rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:45

My castaway this week is the comedian, television presenter and writer Dara O'Brien. He's known for his razor-sharp stand-up comedy and the hugely popular panel show Mock the Week which he hosted for 17 years. He has also shared his passion for science and astronomy on programmes including Stargazing Live with Brian Cox. He grew up in Bray, County Wicklow on the east coast of Ireland, where he was a shy, maths-loving boy, a nerd as he puts it. After studying physics at university, he became a children's television presenter, but the thrill of performing live lured him to London, where he earned his comedic stripes on the stand-up circuit. At heart, he's a storyteller, and his own life has proved fertile ground for material, including the discovery of a family he didn't know he had. He says, it's the prospect of failure that lights the creative fire. The cold, unamused stare of the audience is a great motivator. Well never fear, Dara, we can't see the whites of their eyes today. Dora O'Brien, welcome to Das Arn Discs.

Dara Ó Briain1:43

It's a pleasure to be here.

Presenter1:45

So Dara, I think that idea about the fear of failure is shared between comics and scientists alike as a motivator. Beyond that though, what do those two disciplines have in common? Because they are the kind of twin engines of your creative life.

Dara Ó Briain2:00

They are, and you write the jokes in a scattergun kind of a way. You write a couple of hours of material, you draw a few stories together, and then you find yourself with all this stuff and go, well, how best to order this? And there is an active structure there in terms of like, well, how can I move the audience's energy, lift them, and then drop them, lift them, drop them.

Presenter2:10

Yeah.

Presenter2:16

And also, like you, as you're describing it, it's a fun puzzle. Which is that's a shared

Dara Ó Briain2:18

Guys, what?

Dara Ó Briain2:20

There was a point I remember where I could not work it out. It was pre-Edmur or something like that and I had an hour of stuff and I couldn't work it out. So I wrote all the bits on a piece of paper, on little individual pieces of paper, scrunched them up and threw them in the air. And then unraveled them and saw, well, okay, oh yeah, that actually could lead to that, like whatever. So a lot of the time you remember, you don't remember specifically the joke, you remember the link between two jokes.

Presenter2:43

So much of stand-up is writing, it's written, it's that kind of creative act, sitting down on your own. How much do you enjoy that part of the job?

Dara Ó Briain2:44

Yeah.

Dara Ó Briain2:49

It's a zone you get into on the on the buildup of a new tour show where you're just looking at anything, just looking around going, tables, what's on the table? The scissors on the table, scissors funny. No, what am I saying? I look at anything.

Presenter3:01

With kind of hungry eyes.

Dara Ó Briain3:02

Oh, for anything, you can't lose it. That's an interesting thing that that waiter just said, is that a thing? If I flipped it over, I did that, like, whatever. It's got it can be. You can't be doing it all the time. The dream is that you have six good ideas. Everything else I'll discover as I go along. But if I've got six good ideas, then that's a two-hour show right there.

Presenter3:18

Dora, we've got so much to talk about today, but of course we've also got your music. Tell us about your first dis.

Dara Ó Briain3:24

The first was very quickly became my favourite tune of all time. If you imagine being a schoolboy in Ireland of 15, everyone's bags had either U2 or ACDC written on them. And so Prince came along and delivered Kiss, a song that blew the minds of everyone who was at that age. We had never heard a sound like it. And that noise, that just sweet guitar thing, that... did a little thing noise, it's the finest sound in the world. Actually, a lot of the time I don't dwell on the lyrics of things. Particularly, I remember doing interviews where I'd mentioned KISS as my favourite song and they would go, well, what does it say to you? And so I was 15 in Dublin. I was a shy, dorky, virginal 15-year-old in Dublin, really awkward in his own skin. At no stage was I going, oh, that man in the Bolero outfit with the high heels, he's really speaking to me. But the guitar sound was just the sweetest thing.

Speaker 13:59

Deshai.

Speaker 44:27

Don't know.

Presenter4:42

KISS, Prince and the Revolution. Dara O'Breen, as I mentioned, you were brought up in Bray, County Wicklow, and you were educated at Irish language schools there. That was very important to your parents, particularly your dad. Why was that?

Dara Ó Briain4:56

Well, my dad during the 1960s travelled around Europe a lot and found himself kind of irritated that every country went to, we had their own language, and Ireland had let its language slip. And so he became part of what's known as Glushuten Geilge, which was a movement in the 60s to revive a very moribund language. For him, it was tied into choral music, and he would have a push for an Irish language mass at the big Catholic church, and he would establish a choir for that, and they would sing through Irish. But also then, he changed his name into Irish. So he became Sean. He became Sean rather than John, and he spoke Irish to us. My mum doesn't speak Irish fluently. For her, it was more of the cultural thing of the Kaylee dancing and that whole failas and flaz and these kind of big festivals.

Presenter5:30

So he became short.

Presenter5:41

Your dad was a negotiator. Yeah, he did. He was a trade union negotiator.

Dara Ó Briain5:43

Yeah, he did. He was a bit. And by all sounds, a tenacious one. He had a saying for a long time, beid era, neid quera, which translates directly as be a shepherd, not a sheep. You know, don't follow.

Presenter5:54

So did you ever get to see your dad speaking in front of an audience?

Dara Ó Briain5:57

I did and it was interesting because he would do these ch these carol services. There's a huge church in Bray and he would do this carol service and there'd be like six hundred thousand people at these things with various choirs and music groups playing and he would conduct this and then he would turn to the audience and he would give some spiel about it, like whatever. And I remember standing there watching him and being very impressed by that. And that that would that had an effect on me, I'd say.

Presenter6:17

So tell me about your your mother, Ethna. Sh

Dara Ó Briain6:20

Choose a

Presenter6:20

The florist

Dara Ó Briain6:21

My mother i i is just a chatty storyteller, talks really quickly and I know which is a trait that is really unattractive in person.

Presenter6:31

You say with a knowing raise of the eyebrows.

Dara Ó Briain6:33

Yeah, you know, and so she would, you know, gabble on about things constantly, like whatever, and would tell a story and then just change the story. And you're kind of going, you can't just, we, we live, we were, we, we were there. None of this. Can you think of an example? Oh my God. The uh, I have an extreme example. I mean, we had a dog once, God love, we had a dog once, and we were both too old really to be looking after a dog, to be honest, it came to us because it was Australia and we found, and then the dog had to go and go live somewhere else, like, whatever. But her telling of this is, well, I said to the kids and they were crying, they said, Mammy, don't send away the dog, don't send away the dog. And we were going, I was 18 and she was 21. We weren't crying because oh, they held on to me and I said, oh, I'm going to get rid of the dog now. I'm going to get rid of the dog now. Things became epic.

Presenter7:17

Disc number two, what have you got?

Dara Ó Briain7:18

I have gone classical because I don't look like all I do is dance and I've gone choral probably in tribute to my father also because this is a piece of music I remember being away from for the first extended period of time when I was a student in America and I would listen to this for some reason always made me remind me of home because there was lots of classical music always played in the house and I would get a little bit a little bit weepy and for some reason every time that happened the following day he'd ring I have no idea how he did that and he would just ring how are things going it was grand it was just lovely to hear the voice and then I would complain about oh it's rubbish dad the chocolate here is terrible it's awful like it's American chocolate like whatever and then about two weeks later this block appeared that I had to go to a post office somewhere in Boston to collect this three kilogram block and when I opened it up it was filled with proper bars of chocolate um but anyway piece of music that was played off and I think among the high points of choral music it's Mozart's Requiem.

Presenter9:12

Mozart's Requiem, performed by the London Symphony Orchestra with the London Symphony Chorus, conducted by Sir Colin Davis. Dar O'Brien, your parents were very open when you were growing up about the fact that they adopted you when you were a baby. Can you remember when they told you what they told you?

Dara Ó Briain9:27

No, the interesting thing about it is I sort of can't to the extent that it became a thing that I sort of forgot. I mean, I sat down with my father at one stage and said, in my 30s and said, look, just confirm this for me. Am I adopted? And he said, yes. He said, well, how did you forget? And I said, well, did you tell me? And he goes, yeah, but we got bored of telling you.

Dara Ó Briain9:51

You know, and that must happen if you adopt a child, you don't want to keep do I have to keep saying that?

Presenter9:55

Well it's interesting because obviously, you know, from what you've told me about your family, you know, if you told me that, I I forgot, I would think, well, that implies you weren't talking about it, you weren't engaging with it. But you don't sound like you were that kind of family. You were you were talking a lot.

Dara Ó Briain10:06

Yeah, but I mean, maybe not about that. And that just became, it was just like a fact. And they've always ever since been like, well, it's your story.

Presenter10:13

There's this concept for a lot of adopted kids that they have of this ghost kingdom, you know, the kind of fantasy other reality of their. You didn't have that, you didn't think of that. I didn't. I didn't.

Dara Ó Briain10:22

You didn't think of it. And the thing I've always spoken of is is the phrase I use is a void, because people say that that they had a void or something that they knew was missing in their life for the year. I I didn't have that. Either because I was

Presenter10:27

Yeah.

Speaker 110:32

Yeah.

Dara Ó Briain10:35

You know, relatively self-sufficient. And then my own family that I have now, my family as it were as I'll put it, you know, these have all been very fulfilling. You know, I have a good relationship with my parents, this thing. So it was never a case of, it was more like there was a story that I could find out at some stage, and the story was a book on a shelf that maybe I'll take down at some stage.

Presenter10:49

Sure.

Presenter10:53

And what about religion, Dara? You were brought up uh Roman Catholic. Were you e s expected to be devout as a boy?

Dara Ó Briain10:59

The presumption would have been yes, and we certainly would have gone through all the stages of it, confirmation, communion, all that sort of stuff. It was some point late teens that I remember going, this isn't really speaking to me, I'm not really getting something from this, like whatever. And there's a touch of you doing it for the sake of the parents. So they would probably sooner I didn't do a lot of stuff about it on stage, but I don't really anymore anyway. I've made my point on that one.

Presenter11:23

It's time for some more music, Dora. Disc number three. What are we gonna hear and why?

Dara Ó Briain11:27

I felt a nod to art traditional music, of which there was a ton when I was growing up, and also to my school and to the art language and the band of Chosen's Band called Keela, a ragtag collection of incredibly gifted artist traditional musicians who've combined it in a very modern format and they do these huge spectacular live shows. It's also called Glonny Mae, which is about removing somebody from your heart. It means I'll clean you up from my heart, Glanny Mae, by Keila.

Speaker 411:54

Wait.

Presenter12:22

Glanimae by Keela. Dar O'Breen, you read Mathematical Physics at University College Dublin. You've described yourself as quite a shy kid at school, but by that time you started taking part in student debates. What did you enjoy about them?

Dara Ó Briain12:37

In Irish universities, debating is a huge social and public thing. So on a Thursday and a Friday, they would have big public debates and what looked like super confident gods walk among us, would walk down there and they would speak in front of the audience. And I would sit in first year going, oh my god, that's the most impressive thing I've ever seen in my life. And I did nothing about it for a year.

Dara Ó Briain12:59

And then the second year, I did the maiden speakers competition, which is in a little room. And during that summer, they'd moved one of the faculties out of that big arts building, the arts law commerce building. Now it's just the arts commerce building. They'd move law to this other building miles away. But they, forced a habit, these lads have come traipsing down again to hang out. And they were attending this debate. There's only about 20 people there. And get this for a piece of killer material. The first thing I said was, it's a pleasure to have you all here, especially the members of the law faculty who have traveled so far to be with us today. And that got a laugh and a round of applause. And it ignited a dial that I didn't know I had. It literally, there was a spike of adrenaline that I'd never got. A laugh from loads of strangers. And it was like, whoa, what was that feeling? And in many ways, everything I've done has been just chasing that high.

Presenter13:53

Dara, it's time for your next track.

Dara Ó Briain13:55

Number four. It's the siren call of a great dance track. Those eight beats at the start that basically go, Get over here now, get here now. We're that you're about to start dancing, so get here now. The one that I hear from the other side of the room and I go

Presenter14:06

Then you've got to get on to the ground.

Dara Ó Briain14:07

Excuse me. Excuse me. I may be in the middle of a transaction here. I may be in a conversation, but I've got to go now. And the song I've probably taken most joy from, pure joy, is the one that starts with them literally saying, It's time to dance now at the very start. And then it absolutely is just my absolute soundtrack, which is Groove is in the Heart by D-Light.

Speaker 114:27

I'm going to dance.

Speaker 114:29

Wind a dance.

Speaker 114:31

We're going to dance and have some fun.

Speaker 414:42

Do you really Uh

Speaker 114:42

Uh

Speaker 414:50

The chills that you spill up my back Leave me filled with satisfaction when we're done

Presenter14:57

D-Light and Groove is in the Heart. So Daro Breen, after you graduated from university, you dipped your toe into stand-up comedy, performing at a cabaret club in Dublin. How did it go that first night?

Dara Ó Briain15:08

I did five minutes and there was a video of a found well, somebody found one stage, and I am clinging to the middle of the um microphone stand. I had both hands on the middle of the microphone stand, holding up, and I'm just saying the words. I had s walked around that part of Dublin for three hours beforehand.

Presenter15:24

It's a really bad stage break.

Dara Ó Briain15:24

And then the rush is enormous.

Presenter15:26

Alright, we'll see.

Presenter15:28

So you were building your act, learning to do stand up, just finding your feet and finding your voice. You were also at the time writing for the Irish newspaper Sunday World, and you became a a Kids' T V presenter. You were doing well, but then in two thousand one you upped sticks and moved to London. Was that a difficult decision to make?

Dara Ó Briain15:32

Yes.

Dara Ó Briain15:46

No, I'd hit a kind of a um I wouldn't say I was treading water but I'd kind of hit a sort of limit and I felt like in terms of stand-up the thing to do now is probably to go somewhere else. And it wasn't as much that I went to London as I went and did festivals. I started doing Edinburgh, then you do Melbourne, then you do Adelaide. There was a very rootless couple of years where I didn't have any address even.

Presenter16:07

And when was the turning point or the period that it changed and you thought, actually, I've cracked this, it's working?

Dara Ó Briain16:14

I think it was in 2002 I went to Montreal. I got booked to Montreal. In fact, it was an interesting year because I did an Irish tour and it was unmitigated just three weeks of just awfulness. The people stayed in Wayne Droves is the phrase they use. I did three weeks of this tour and I remember arriving back in London and going, ah, that's it. There you go. That's how it goes, like whatever. And I had one gig left in the diary, remember, essentially, before I went on holidays, and it was to do a tryout for Montreal in the comedy store. It brocked, went to Montreal, had these amazing gigs, did the gala and Edinburgh was about three weeks later. It just took off.

Presenter16:52

It's time for some more music, Dara. Number five, What's Next?

Dara Ó Briain16:55

Gloria Estefan has featured in four separate shows of mine, and only one person's ever noticed that. There was a guy who said,

Presenter17:01

Was it Gloria?

Dara Ó Briain17:02

It wasn't Gloria. Gloria herself has never noticed this, like whatever. But I had full routines about our house. I would throw in a tiny bit of like rhythm is gonna get you. I'd throw it into another show. And it started because I needed a Spanish phrase for one particular show. I was going out with a girl who was an ex-by in Spain, and we were out for lunch. We're in a fast food restaurant, and I just pointed to one of the posters at the meal I wanted. And I read the thing of the meal. I say,¿Quélo mi cuba la liblé, paje magente pueda de bailar. I read the thing on the poster, and the guy looked shocked. And I turned, and my girlfriend was on the floor laughing. I said, What? And she had to pick herself up. I said, Ah, honey, you just said to him, Why not enjoy our new lunchtime meal deal special?

Dara Ó Briain17:47

And so it was a real thing that happened. I read the phrase out, but then didn't know what the actual phrase was, so needed to substitute a phrase. So I just stole the chorus of a Gloria Estefan song in Spanish that I kinda like. And so for years would say, I just said it there.

Speaker 418:02

Let's get to it for some season

Dara Ó Briain18:04

Ah, it's a banger, there's a drum and the things going on. It's called Google Library and it's by Gloria Esther.

Speaker 418:23

The weather behind

Speaker 418:37

Um

Presenter18:41

Cuba Libre by Gloria Estefan. Daro Brien, in two thousand five you started hosting the BBC panel show Mock the Week. It ran for seventeen years. Did you enjoy your role as ringmaster?

Dara Ó Briain18:52

At times, yes, at times no. There was bits during the earlier years of it where it was very complicated, very elbowsy and you couldn't there was no space to mess around really.

Presenter19:01

I think you said that you felt sometimes in those periods you felt more like a traffic cop.

Dara Ó Briain19:05

Yeah, there was an element doing that. And also, a really sharp one-liner can kill a topic, can just be the final word, and can put a hat on something, and you're kind of going, Well, I was about to do some gentle whimsy at this point, but I can't anymore because you've just come in hard. And Frankie, obviously, that's his genius or whatever. And then Russell will come in as well. And so the two of them were the first in and the last in. And so, Russell Harris, sorry, was it Frankie Russell a lot of the time? And then it sort of needed them to move on to other things for it to let the rest of it breathe a bit. And then went into this golden phase for me of it was people messing around. It had a weird relationship with people. It was

Speaker 119:22

The first deal in the

Dara Ó Briain19:40

Very derogatory to say, no, that's not as good as it used to be, or it's a wrong sort of thing, and there were things on which it made it was wrong.

Presenter19:46

And is this the diversity because it was criticized for a lack of on-screen diversity?

Dara Ó Briain19:48

Criticized for a lack of on-screen diversity. Absolutely. And I think that's bang on. I think they would argue, and it certainly is true that it reflected, it accurately reflected the lack of diversity that was in that section of the comedy world at the time. But that doesn't mean that it couldn't have done more and then did more, hopefully, later, in terms of bringing new talent in. But at the time, they're excuseably being, this is, look, if you skim through the program for the Edinburgh Festival in 2008, it's a sausage festival. It is just bloke, bloke, bloke, bloke, bloke, bloke, bloke, bloke, bloke. If you do it now, totally different. So I've always said that the reason it did is because the generation of female comics kicked the door in.

Presenter20:27

So it was decommissioned last year, and you have said that you had quite mixed feelings about that decision. Why?

Dara Ó Briain20:33

I did, because I on the one hand it had endured and it had been very good to me and it could have gone on, but equally you don't get that kind of innings normally. So but the the real reason it was kind of bittersweet was after years of people going, Oh, it's rubbish, it's rubbish, rubbish the minute it got asked people were like, I've always been very fond of it.

Dara Ó Briain20:53

What were you watching all this time? Nobody told us that. All we got was the grief of people. We never got the impression that people were liking it.

Presenter21:01

Monk the Week featured so many different kinds of comics with so many styles, some extremely hard hitting, controversial. You know, for you, when it comes to your own work, where are the lines? Where where d what will you joke about? What won't you joke about?

Dara Ó Briain21:12

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dara Ó Briain21:14

I kind of sidestep this hunt early, not deliberately, but just as it turns out, my style is generally conversational, anecdotal, personal, or I tend to do whimsical connections and elevate jokes and that, like whatever, make improvisational things. So I sidestep a lot of that. I find it kind of weird when people come up and go, you can't see anything. And I go, I'm literally talking for two hours. I dislike, genuinely dislike when people try to narrow comedy down to, well, the point of comedy is to be saying shocking and it's really not. That's the way some people like to do it. But it is one of the things it can do. But it also has been a hugely broad church. People tend to skip all that and talk about it as if the only thing that comedy should be doing is having a take on whatever, the trans issue or whatever the things that people are getting very, very passionate about. I'm not saying that we're all there doing twee puns and funny parody songs or whatever like that or whatever, but we're finding ways to talk about other things in shows without this constant royal of people going, yeah, but why aren't you being shocking? That's not what we all do.

Presenter22:18

Alright, Dara, time for some more music. It's your sixth choice today. What is it and why are you taking it to the island?

Dara Ó Briain22:23

I've chosen some jazz, I've chosen some Hammond organ. So it's Jimmy Regriff, one of the great Hammond organs, but I also, just as a nod to, yeah, maybe this is where the dancing is going now, that post-show, there's literally nothing I enjoy more than finding a jazz clip where people are playing. When you're in that kind of buzz of, you know, energy and adrenaline or whatever, to watch somebody else be brilliant, someone with genuine talent, do a thing, is just a really nice way to continue that buzz. And this is a perfect example, Jimmy McGriff with all about my garden.

Speaker 423:40

Oh boy.

Presenter23:54

Jimmy McGriff and all about my girl. Dora O'Breen, in 2020 you met your birth mother for the first time. What made you want to find her?

Dara Ó Briain24:03

I went see Philomena.

Dara Ó Briain24:05

Philomena, Steve Coogan wrote it, Judy Dench started in it, story of Philomena Lee, story of a woman who, and I always say this with quotation marks, get her child up for adoption, because there's obviously a lot of, there was a lot of coercion, societal pressure involved in that, and then spent her entire life trying to find out what happened to the child. And I genuinely walked out of that cinema going, oh, you just, you're not the main protagonist in this story. There was a woman who gave a baby up for adoption 45 years ago, and you have made yourself invisible because you've not engaged with the search. So therefore, she has no idea what's going on. And I have met Steve Coogan and said, thank you for this. I have met Judy Dench. And I had two things I wanted to thank Judy Dench for, like, whatever. So I'm very happy if somebody passed this on. Firstly, just because this inspired me to do this search. And secondly, her hair in that film was remarkable.

Dara Ó Briain24:56

It was and it's not noted on, but her hair was older Irish woman hair, a kind of a soft curl, b blow dried kind of thing that my mammy has. Totally nailed, nailed the look, the scarf, the hair, totally nailed. Whoever somebody Irish was doing that and went, I don't know this sh this is how mammy's dress.

Presenter25:13

So tell me about that first meeting then. You eventually tracked it down. You arranged to meet in a hotel. How did it go?

Dara Ó Briain25:19

Well, look, people always say, oh, did it answer all the questions? It doesn't answer any of the questions. You sit across from this person, this stranger. There's not some.

Dara Ó Briain25:26

Click of a button that happens that it's like, Oh, I'm finally home. That's that's not. People have lived their lives and gone in different directions and it's

Presenter25:34

And so when it comes to building that relationship, that that process is a long one then. Tell me about that from your point of view. How did it feel and how does it change your kind of understanding of yourself and who you are?

Dara Ó Briain25:46

But the greatest advice I could give for that is be ready to pause because that is very, very useful. Because I'm not hugely emotional in my investment in this, like whatever. Obviously, some of it has been quite moving and all that, but like whatever. But it wasn't like I wasn't, as I said earlier, I was quite, you know, I have a family, I was quite emotionally stable, wasn't filling a void. So I came in the best possible way in terms of being stable about this. And this is just an addition to my life. Essentially, this is a story that I will have and I should know this story. But even I had to go, right, let's take a pause because this can go fast or it can go slow. One of the things that helps in this is that the Irish are very informal with each other. It's like the hello has already been done. So when I went over and I met them and I met the entire family,

Speaker 126:20

Yeah.

Speaker 426:20

Yeah.

Dara Ó Briain26:29

Yeah.

Presenter26:29

And what was that like?

Dara Ó Briain26:29

And what was that like?

Presenter26:33

Uh

Dara Ó Briain26:33

It's a little bit like the yeah.

Presenter26:33

Yeah.

Presenter26:34

And how extensive is this parking lot?

Dara Ó Briain26:36

Oh, this is this was three sisters and a brother and herself and the and and her husband. So there's about seven of us. The second day we met even more of them'cause they're you know, their children then come along, like whatever. And the daughter of them, Kira, lovely woman, points to the chairman and said, These are new, they were got for you

Dara Ó Briain26:54

I said really, yeah, yeah, for the royal visit. That sort of stuff just undercuts it really nicely.

Presenter26:58

Tell me about your your birth mother then. You said, you know, at first you were strangers, but, you know, you have kind of developed a bond. But I know there was a moment where you had to decide whether you were going to give her a hug or not.

Dara Ó Briain27:10

The first time we met, there was a social worker who set this up, and she would come in so we afterwards go, How's it going? You're a bit more time talking. And I remember she came at one stage. Second time she came in, it was after a couple of hours. And it was funny because she said, So do you need more time? And we both went, No, no, we're grand, we're fine. It didn't be quite just a few, nope, that's fine, that's grand, it's cool, right? Okay, we now need to process this. That's been fine. And there was a couch, I'm on one couch, and she's on the other couch. And there's a low table between us. And I remember catching myself standing behind the low table because the low table was too wide for somebody to reach across and then going, Oh, you, wow, you're just deliberately avoiding this. And there's a maybe this voice going, you're not my mammy. And you're going, no, that's not it. That's not what's going on here. It's grand, you know. And I think I'd like to think my mammy, who I refer to earlier on this, knows well her status in this is unchanging, unshakable in all this. But I then move my, I consciously move, get out from behind there, get out from behind there. It felt like you'd say to your kids, going, Come on, come on, your grandfather's going, get out, get out, get out, take it back to your grandfather. It's grand as they would back away. I was a kid backing away and no, get out here. And we did have a photograph together. I gave her hope. But it wasn't like.

Speaker 128:22

Mm.

Dara Ó Briain28:28

Finally, this is the moment where the music swells, it was just

Presenter28:31

You know

Dara Ó Briain28:32

You build a relationship. Yeah.

Presenter28:34

Time for some more music, I think, Dara. This is disc number seven.

Dara Ó Briain28:37

As you'll notice from my tracks, I tend to use music as a kind of a soundtrack, either pre-gig or bobbing around as I walk around. I like the dance element of it all, like whatever. And equally, then, because my wife is a big fan of other types of music, it's on in the house, like whatever, that I've begun to listen to stuff that I wouldn't have done. And one of those bands is Belle and Sebastian. But we went to see them in New York, and it was great. But I was only very new to watching them after the gig. We're still in the venue, and she went to the bathroom. And when she went, just the moment she went to the bathroom, Stuart Murdoch walked out of some door just to say hello to people.

Presenter29:09

This is the singer from Bella.

Dara Ó Briain29:10

Singer Bill Sebastian, like whatever, and said, oh, hello. And I said, hi. In a real, I don't know enough to sustain this conversation. Like this guy, I go, we loved it. Good gig. Well done. Well done. And well done on all your work. I mean really, really rubbish. And he's like, oh, great. Well, anyway, nice to meet you. Thanks for coming to the show, like whatever. And it's like Clark Kent in Superman. It was like a rotating door that he went up. And then my wife suddenly reappeared and said, okay, anything happened? I said, oh, just a minute ago. But also, in terms of the lyrics, there is one verse in this song which has a verse about a baseball player. And at the end of the thing, it goes on the baseball player's emotional struggles and includes the line, life outside the diamond is a wrench. And I've always loved that line because it seems to speak to sports people, musicians, comedians. What we do is playtime. And outside of that, oh, God, do I have to pay bills and work things out and do school runs and all the... Yes, you do. Can I just go back inside the diamond and just hit the ball? So it's Piazza New York Catcher by Belle and Sebastian.

Speaker 430:10

Catcher hits for 3.18 and catches every day The pitcher boots religion first and rests on holidays He goes into cathedrals and lies prostrate on the floor He knows a drink affects his speed, he's praying for a tower back into the life he wants Mid confession of the bench Life outside the diamond is a wrench

Speaker 430:38

I wish that you were here with me.

Presenter30:40

Piazza New York catcher Belle and Sebastian. Dara O'Breen, many listeners know you from the BBC astronomy programme Stargazing Live. Now, you'd always enjoyed looking up at the night sky, but I know that your interest really took hold a few years ago. What happened?

Dara Ó Briain30:54

This is mainly because during lockdown I had nothing else to do, so I said, Right, fine, rather than doing a T V show where they bring me amazing images, I'm now in the garden, why don't I buy a telescope? and then I bought another telescope, and then I bought another telescope, and over the course of lockdown it became this thing.

Presenter31:03

What

Presenter31:07

So have you got like a telescope, Ched, or what where'd you put one?

Dara Ó Briain31:07

Yeah.

Dara Ó Briain31:09

But there is an there is an area of the kitchen, and it's that is a contentious issue.

Dara Ó Briain31:14

Because not just the area is now

Presenter31:15

The area is now it's k it's just it's expanding.

Dara Ó Briain31:18

Oh, there's a series of telescopes and then smaller telescopes that act as cameras and the ones that act as guide scopes, and it's all sitting there in a kind of a semi-permanent way, and it's not well regarded.

Presenter31:28

Wow, it's probably best that you're going off to the island then. What about life on the island? Do you have any practical skills?

Dara Ó Briain31:34

No, no, no, no.

Presenter31:35

But you know, constructing a shelter, the sort of engineering.

Dara Ó Briain31:37

Oh no, I'll die of exposure instantly on the island. There'll be no question. I have no skills. My image of the island, by the way, is an island like in those cartoons, in Desert Island cartoons, where there's just a tree and a small ring of sand. They'd find me dead and there'd be rock spelling S and O and partially spelling the other S and I would have just gone, oh, this is too much effort. I don't want to write everything out. I'm just going to die.

Presenter31:54

Yeah, yeah.

Presenter31:58

Too odd.

Dara Ó Briain31:59

It's horrible here. I'm burnt. I'm going to just collapse here. So, yeah, no, no, no. I'm not made for that. I mean, I would walk around to the other side just in case there is a hotel there. That would be, I think that's a very important thing to check always these days: is are you just on the other side of a hotel that has a luxury resort? Because if you died not knowing, oh, did you not know? It's excellent. I mean, you know, they probably wouldn't let you in if you didn't have a credit card, but they're once.

Presenter32:25

So once you get there, do give the place a f a thorough once over.

Dara Ó Briain32:28

You just do one lap of it and then go, okay, I'll die now because there's nothing going to happen here. However, there'll be a few great nights.

Presenter32:29

Pm.

Dara Ó Briain32:35

Because the sky's been incredibly clear, and I dance, obviously, a lot.

Presenter32:39

Yeah, wouldn't you? And we've got one more to go.

Dara Ó Briain32:39

That'd keep going, wouldn't it?

Dara Ó Briain32:43

Oh, we do, we do, yeah.

Presenter32:44

Well, tell us what it is, let's hear it.

Dara Ó Briain32:46

For some reason I was on a flight landing either into Dublin or into or from Dublin to London at a time where they tailor tick off the headphones for some reason they forgot to tell me so there was a sense of like oh this is not him being allowed to listen to this like whatever and I remember listening to this as the plane came into land and made the whole thing very epic and then I realized oh my god he sustained this so long and now and now he's building it again he sustained it again this is incredible and then I was like oh he's sustained and then everybody was oh no it's on repeat I've literally just come back to this

Dara Ó Briain33:13

I was two and a half in before I realized this is too long now. He's really, he's kind of dragging this out a bit, like whatever. But it is the thing that I would have played at my funeral over a montage of photographs to be looking incredibly young and beautiful because it would kill the audience. Absolutely. The audience. It's my funeral.

Presenter33:31

Oh wow.

Dara Ó Briain33:32

Yeah, they're the Freudian slip. They're always an audience.

Presenter33:35

Okay.

Dara Ó Briain33:37

What's the trap?

Dara Ó Briain33:38

It's Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber.

Presenter34:42

Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings, performed by the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. So, Dara O'Breen, I'm going to send you away to your island now, giving you the Bible.

Dara Ó Briain34:52

Oh no no on ground on fine text.

Presenter34:54

Okay. You can have the complete works of Shakespeare and you can take one other book with you.

Dara Ó Briain34:57

Uh

Dara Ó Briain34:58

I'm going to do a thing that sits on my shelf, almost mocking me, but I've got to go through it at some stage, which is the Richard Feynman Feynman's Lectures on Physics.

Presenter35:06

Physics it is. What about a luxury item?

Dara Ó Briain35:09

Oh, an astrophotography rig.

Dara Ó Briain35:11

Which is basically a telescope, but with a specific camera on the end of it and some filters and stuff, because there's stuff you can see, and then very quickly you start going. If I just point the camera at a point of the sky in which I can see nothing, but let it run for six hours, then images start appearing of nebulae and distant galaxies, and the sky will be crystal clear. There's a scale called the Bortle scale, which is the amount of light pollution. I live in London, so I'm eight out of nine. I'm presuming the desert island is zero. Oh, yeah. And that would be mind-blowing.

Speaker 135:15

Yeah.

Presenter35:41

Oh yeah.

Presenter35:43

Do you know what, Dara, I'm going to give you it on the basis of, number one, The Majesty of the Cosmic Ballet, which I want you to observe.

Dara Ó Briain35:50

Uh

Presenter35:50

Number two, I think it's time you cleared out the kitchen. So

Dara Ó Briain35:53

Yeah, there's an element of that. Like, I'd I'd be asked to take the

Dara Ó Briain35:57

If you're in a half point.

Presenter35:57

If other half wants to add anything into the mix, she's more than welcome.

Dara Ó Briain36:00

Yeah, and while you're at it, all of that stuff can go as well. It's just basically a skip. I bring a skip full of stuff that is currently cluttering the house.

Presenter36:07

And finally, which one of the aid tracks that you've shared with us today would you save from the waves?

Dara Ó Briain36:12

D'you know what, I'd have to go groove in the heart by daylight.

Presenter36:16

Dara O'Brien, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Dara Ó Briain36:19

It was a pleasure.

Presenter36:33

Hello, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Dara. I am slightly concerned about how he'll cope on the island, but if he keeps looking up, maybe he'll be okay. We've cast away many comics, including Dawn French, Stephen Merchant, and Bob Monkhouse. The stars of Philomena, Steve Coogan, and Dame Judy Densh are in our back catalogue too. You can find their episodes in our Desert Island Discs programme archive and through BBC Sounds. The studio manager for today's programme was Sarah Hockley, the assistant producer was Christine Pavlotsky, and the producer was Paula McGinley.

Speaker 437:14

Hello, my name's Michelle DeSwort and I'm Laura Smith. And we have a new podcast from BBC Radio 4. Bang on It is a weekly podcast where we curate, recommend, cherry-pick through the week and just go have a look at that. Basically, we're going highbrow, we're going lowbrow, right? We're doing the legs, we're doing the hard yard, so you don't have to. Oh, I like that. Listen, like all podcasts, we're talking about stuff we've done, whether you should bother doing it, but really, we're waxing lyrical and trying to make that paper, baby. The economy's in the pan. Subscribe to Bang on It on BBC Sounds.