Dara O Briain: I'd be delighted for a female team captain to replace Andy Parsons on Mock the Week

The comedian talks Mock the Week, touring and why he feels like a dinosaur
Emma Powell19 November 2015
The Weekender

Sign up to our free weekly newsletter for exclusive competitions, offers and theatre ticket deals

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

Dara O Briain has revealed that he would be "delighted" to see a female comedian replace Andy Parsons on Mock the Week.

O Briain, 43, hosts the topical BBC panel show, which featured Andy Parsons as a team captain up until he announced his departure in October.

Speaking to the Standard Online about who he would like to see replace him, O Briain said: "I’d be delighted to get a permanent female. You’ve got Sara Pascoe and Katherine Ryan you’ve got Tiff Stevenson and Holly Walsh – you’ve got a whole generation of really brilliant female comedians coming through, so yes, absolutely. They have really changed the tone of it."

O Briain said the show – which first aired 10 years ago – has gone through a series of "evolutions" and now plays host to younger comedians.

"At some point I’ll wake up and Hugh would have gone and then I'll feel like the last dinosaur being surrounded by invertebrates," he said. "The show has become like a young comic show to a certain extent, which has been fun to be around. It goes through a load of evolutions."

Latest comedy reviews

1/10

The comic is currently nearing the end of his Crowd Tickler Live tour which to date has seen him perform 134 gigs across the UK.

Despite a huge following and a string of sold out shows, he admits that an arena tour is not likely to be on the cards.

"I do four nights or five nights that would translate to maybe one night that I wouldn’t enjoy in an arena,” he said. “If you have a much more conversational style like I have, then arenas really don’t work. You throw the joke out it rolls up and back down again so it tends to suit people whose show is very honed and prepared, but if you’re a messer like I am the nicer size is like 1,500.

"You can sustain a conversation at the [Hammersmith] Apollo but when you get to above 4000 people or 10,000 you’re not talking to people anymore."

It's this conversational style at lightning fast speed, together with random interactions, which map the first half of O Briain’s gigs.

“It gives the audience a thing that they know only exists that night and then the show itself becomes a show,” he said of his style. “Some people love the off the cuff stuff and they know the risk but you couldn’t do it all. People like to actually think that you’ve written a show.”

At times he admits that his mind is forced to work at the same speed as his deliveries when audience members offer up less exciting anecdotes – especially when discussing their careers.

“Increasingly you get people who work in jobs that are very technical - sometimes that’s fun. The other night I had someone who made the plates from which greetings cards are cut. It’s incredibly specific and you try then to make it legendary. I said ‘Oh what you could tell us about the trends in the greetings card industry’. And he genuinely went ‘Christmas’ and I thought ‘what an insight’.”

Dara O'Briain ‘Crowd Tickler Live’ available on digital download now and DVD from November 23.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in