As a child in Catholic Ireland, comedian Alan McElroy didn’t have the holy trinity: he had a pantheon.
McElroy worshipped action heroes like John McClane, comedians like Bill Murray who cracked wise, drank hard and still got the girl (“It felt attainable,” he said), and pro wrestlers like The Ultimate Warrior who somewhat normalised the high-energy impulses of his then-undiagnosed ADHD. Blessed be the celebrity! It’s just the spiritual nourishment a growing boy needed back then, and in some ways not a lot has changed.
In his new stand-up show, Ah, Jaysus, McElroy shares the pithy parables and miraculous nonsense of youth in a truly weird time. He’s coming from his home in New Zealand and bringing the church of cinema worship and screen saints to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival where he will lead congregations in laughter.
Alan McElroy – Ah, Jaysus
- The Charles Dickens Tavern
- 7-20 April
- Tickets here
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He’s already had a few angry Christians kicking off in the comments about the poster, depicting McElroy as Jesus.
“It’s not out to offend,” he said. “It’s just our story.”
Growing up in Clondalkin in County Dublin, you couldn’t move without tripping over a holy well or shrine. It was proper Jaysus country, with that typical sprinkling of mild religious trauma.
“We were told, as young kids by one teacher, that we die every night and it’s up to God if we wake up so we all had to stand and thank God for being alive,” he said.
But for McElroy, the 90s era Ireland that his show is based in was a time when the Catholic Church was losing cultural power – although he does remember his nan who “had no legs because of diabetes or whatever, you eat a Mars bar and they fall off” making pilgrimages to Lourdes (“I wondered, was she hoping they’d grow back?!”)
“Funny stories,” he said.
He’s full of funny stories, and growing up with ADHD (like some of his comedic inspirations, Tommy Tiernan and Billy Connolly) makes him quick on stage. His last show, Mental, Innit? Was about his own undiagnosed neurodivergence at a time when you had to suppress mental illness, but also what, in hindsight, he’s realised was a family with madness of their own.
“My mother staged a kidnapping of me because I ate some flowers in the garden,” he said. “This was to teach me a lesson. And I never ate flowers again. I barely eat salad.”
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It’s this particular charming levity for odd and dark moments that feels so very Irish. McElroy’s show is presented as part of the Best of Irish program at this festival. For all that he’s lived in New Zealand for 15 years, he still feels his comedic style has essential Irishness to it.
“Storytelling, our humour and irreverence.” he said. “I’ve been involved in that show for a few years now and I love it. Especially when there’s Irish in the crowd! And we all smell of Lynx Africa.”
The Irish patter and wit gives him an advantage in stage presence and makes him one hell of a quizmaster, earning him a win for his MC work at the NZ Comedy Guild Awards. He can work a crowd, but does have the occasional bizarre heckle.
“A drunk Kiwi woman wasn’t happy that Ireland beat the All Blacks that first time and tried to call me a leprechaun but she couldn’t remember the word and called me an Irish midget,” he recalled.
He also has a lo-fi online show with his Scottish comedian mate, David Stuart, called The World Is !@#$%*! based on a round of his comedy pub quiz where he asks a multiple choice question about an unbelievable but true piece of news. In the current state of the world where news seems awfully beyond satire, it’s a painfully relevant idea. And for all that he worshipped the holy saints of celebrity as a young lad, he can see the ways even that is also somewhat more fucked now.
“Then we’d see our idols once a week or on a movie or chat show,” he said. “We saw the best of them or a character portrayed by them. Now people know too much about them, ‘idols’ on social media or reality shows, it could be a worry that when someone’s idol has a horrible opinion or does something bad, it normalises that for a child now.”
Ultimately, shit can get a bit dark at times, whether it’s the weirdness of Ireland in the 90s or the wildness of the present day – but that’s why we have comedy festivals.
Ah Jaysus, it’s all a bit Mental, Innit?
For tickets and program information, visit comedyfestival.com.au.
