Colin Murphy returning to Derry as he celebrates 30 years on the comedy circuit

The renowned comic – best known as one of the panellists from the BBC hit series The Blame Game – is pencilled in for a gig in the Millennium Forum on Friday, April 28, as part of his new tour.

The ‘Journal’ caught up with the Co. Down native who said he is looking forward to reconnecting with his fans in the north west.

“It's been a while. It will be the first time I have been up since the whole business that we will not mention! I haven't even set foot in Derry as a tourist or a visitor since then so it will be a bit of crack.

“To have people in front of you in an audience again is brilliant. The first gigs I did back when things started up again was to finish off the last tour [Colinization], which I had started two years earlier. That was brilliant getting back out again but it is even better now because people are totally relaxed,” he observes.

The 54-year-old is perhaps best-known for his TV-work with RTÉ – The Blizzard of Odd, The Panel – and the BBC – The Blame Game. However, he earned his chops on the stand-up comedy circuit and will be celebrating an incredible 30 years in the business in February.

At the minute he is appearing in smaller venues where he has been trialling new material for ‘Whatchamacolin’ which officially gets underway in February.

“I was out in Omagh at Daly's Comedy Club and it was brilliant. People were rammed in, old fashioned-style, people basically on top of you. I did one in the Moy and in the Sunflower in Belfast. These tiny rooms. It was great. It was as if the pandemic had never happened.”

Fans in the north west will have plenty of opportunity to enjoy the new material. If they can’t make the date in Derry at the end of April, he will be appearing at the Roe Valley Arts & Cultural Centre, Limavady, on Friday, February 17, An Grianán, Letterkenny, on Friday, April 14, and in the Alley Theatre, Strabane, on Saturday, April 15.

Colin is particularly looking forward to the Derry gig.

“The Millennium is a great room. It's a brilliant room to play. Whatever way the acoustics are, whatever way the seating is set up, you feel part of the crowd. You feel connected.

"There are certain big theatres where you don't feel connected. The Millennium has that old fashioned feel like the Opera House. The crowd are on top of each other and can hear each other laughing from the other side of the room.”

As it happens Colin is no stranger to the Maiden City. As well has having performed here as a comic on numerous occasions, he has an interesting side line belting out Ramones numbers with a punk band he founded with none other than Jackie Hamilton of The Moondogs.

"We haven't played since COVID but I have a band The One Two Three Fours as well. We do old punk and new wave covers, with Jackie Hamilton, who used to be in The Moondogs. We would have played up in the Bound for Boston a few times. It was great. A nice wee room playing music, belting them out. That was about five or six years ago.”

And he fondly remembers appearing on the bill of the comedy gala ‘Funny on the Foyle’ during the City of Culture year in 2013 alongside Roy Walker, Kevin McAleer, Nuala McKeever and Patrick Kielty among others.

"That was a brilliant gig. Roy Walker was unbelievable. It was so funny backstage watching all the so-called younger comedians but everybody was watching him on the playback, just his technical delivery. It was a masterclass.”

Despite being synonymous with topical comedy and ‘taking the piss out of the news’ on shows like The Blame Game and The Panel, Colin has found material weighted too heavily with politics just doesn’t work comedically.

“We noticed that with Trump, in particular here, nobody cares. They are just not interested. They don't find it funny. They have no connection to it.

"People have got more interested in what is going on in London. Fifteen years ago, ten years ago, nobody would have cared. They didn't feel part of it. The Brexit thing has made them feel more part of it to an extent and they are more interested but even at that - because stories drag on for so long now - you are sick listening to them. You are sick listening to Trump and you are sick listening to Brexit.”

Thus ‘Watchamacolin’ will be a largely politics-free zone. Instead it will feature the oblique and hilarious observations on everyday life which have become the Downpatrick man’s stock-in-trade.

Asked which comics he admires, Colin says he enjoys the US stand-up John Mulaney, as well as Peter Kay and Kevin Bridges, who he recently saw in Belfast. But for him one comedian was a pioneer.

“I'm of an age where Billy Connolly was the king as far as I'm concerned. I loved his stories. I loved the way he performed. You can see that in people like Tommy Tiernan who has a really similar style of story telling. I loved anybody like that.”

Colin Murphy plays the Millennium Forum on April 28, 2023. Tickets are available now at: www.millenniumforum.co.uk/

As the man himself quips: “It's a very handy stocking filler. For the awkward uncle you find it hard to buy for or your weird brother.”