Colm O'Regan - The Bounds of Comedy 

 

I'm a stand-up comedian, and my toughest ever gig I had to do was in a lawyer's office in Dublin. It was early December 2010. And a few weeks previously, I was boarding a train to Belfast. The timing is important, because around this time, Ireland was broke, and 80 years of independence had been given up for 10 years of a property boom and foreign creditors are in the country telling us how to spend our own money. On the other hand, I was feeling quite chipper at that time. 

 

You see, I had bought a house at the height of the boom and it had gone down in value to almost nothing. But I'd managed to channel my rage into humorous commentary on the economy, [audience laughter] and everybody wanted to know the lighter side of the financial crisis. That day just before getting on the train to Belfast, I'd been giving an interview to BBC News. BBC news wanted to know what I thought about the economic crisis. I was speaking for Ireland. [audience laughter] 

 

And my self-importance wasn't in any way dented by the fact that during the interview, my nose started to run and the entire news watching population of the BBC saw my snot. But other than that, everything was good. On the train, I rang my wife to see were there any new emails. I was quite an email obsessive checker, because I'm self-employed, every email might be a job. I rang her and I said, “Are there any emails?” And she said, “Colm, you checked half an hour ago. Relax. But I'll check.” 

 

And she did. She looked, and there was a new email. I didn't recognize the name of the person it was from. So, I was excited. This could be a corporate gig, which is the holy grail of gigs for comedians. It involves lots of money, not performing that well and being in an unsuitable environment. In many ways, the opposite of The Moth. [audience laughter] “Will I read the email?” she said.” And I said, “Do please.” So, she read the email, and she skin read it as you know when you read out loud and you don't read all the words. So, she read “Blah, blah, blah. At an event on Friday 3rd December, blah, blah, blah. Identified my client by name, blah, blah, blah. Grossly defamatory, blah, blah, blah. Substantial damages.” [audience laughter]  

 

She eventually realized that what she was reading out was a lawyer's letter. And she said, “Colm, I think they're suing you because of a joke you told. What on earth did you say?” And immediately, I flashed back to that fateful day. I was doing a lunchtime gig for a group of businessmen, comfortably well-off people, men in their 50s and 60s, the kind of demographic that you would aim anti-prostate cancer campaign at. [audience laughter] 

 

The gig was going well. They liked my shtick about the economy. I chimed with them, because we were all looking for someone to blame. My idea was that to blame, it was the billboards. You see, Ireland had experienced the worst ever property boom and bust in history. I figured it was because of the billboards that circled all the property developments all around the country, the billboards that wanted you to buy an apartment by selling you an idea of the lifestyle you would be buying into, by showing you photographs of the kind of people who were going to be your neighbors once you moved in. 

 

The photographs were often of a man who looked a little bit like George Clooney’s tightly cropped hair, flecked with gray. He was probably putting on some cufflinks on his way to a charity ball, perhaps. Or, a sexy woman eating some sexy food suggestively. Maybe a bit of asparagus. This was four years ago, so asparagus was still sexy for us in Ireland. [audience laughter] What they were trying to say was that if you bought the apartment, these people would be your neighbors and one or both of them, depending on your proclivity, would bring you in as soon as you moved in and have sex with you on the floor. [audience laughter] That's the lifestyle they were trying to sell. 

 

And the audience liked this. And then, I told a joke about one particular property development and one particular property developer. I identified him by name, and I didn't know he was in the audience. [audience laughter] Now, I can't tell you for legal reasons what the joke was, [audience laughter] so you're just going to have to trust me when I say that it was really funny. [audience laughter] So, in order to experience the situation, think of something else funny. Laugh at that, and you'll be in the situation. 

 

He came up to me afterwards after the show, and we exchanged unpleasantries, and then he walked away. I thought that was that, but it turned out he was walking away to his lawyer's office to send me a letter. So, here I was on the train to Belfast listening to that letter being read out. I was scared, because I had just recently given up my job to become a full-time standup comedian. I suddenly felt very alone. There's lots of scary situations you will encounter in life. But when you leave your job and you're just on your own and then you get sued, that's a pretty scary one. [audience laughter] And then, I felt enraged. I felt he was bullying me with the solicitor's letter. 

 

In the solicitor's letter, they said things like, “What you said went far beyond the bounds of comedy.” I had imagined a property developer and a solicitor sitting down with a whiteboard to work out the bounds of comedy. [audience laughter] But I felt intimidated. I felt bullied, and how dare they clamp down on my free speech. I was David, they were Goliath. And then, I got excited, because this could be my big chance for publicity. I could go to court with this and strike a blow for art against money. I would be David, they would be Goliath, I would be in court with all the big shot city lawyers. 

 

And for some reason, against all rules of jurisprudence, the judge would allow me to address the court for 15 minutes, and I would change minds. There would be spinning headlines the following day which said things like, “Financial security for hitherto unknown comedian as TV deal is offered.” [audience laughter] So, I went to my solicitor. I was excited and I told her the story. And she said, “Colm, I need you to tell me what did you say during the gig?” And I told her the way I'm telling you now in an offhand way. And she said, “No, I need you to tell me exactly how you said it, because I need to know the context. Because if this goes to court, we need to be able to convince a judge that what you said was funny.” 

 

So, I stand up there. So, I stood up at the edge of the table, and as I say, “I've done some tough gigs in my day, but 20 minutes in front of a solicitor who didn't nod or smile once, just took notes, and from time to time interrupted to legally clarify some of the jokes I was telling.” [audience laughter] “So, where were these billboards that this asparagus was on?” And I said, “I'm not sure. In fact, I'm not really sure whether it was asparagus. It might have been lettuce.” “Was it asparagus or was it lettuce? We need to know. [audience laughter] I don't know what. These jokes aren't intended to be quizzed in a legal way. Well, they're going to be quizzed in a legal way, Colm.” 

 

After I was finished, she paused for a bit, and then she gave me one of the toughest reviews I've ever had as a comedian when she said, “I think, Colm, we would have difficulty persuading a judge that what you said was funny.” [audience laughter] So, I think he has a case for defamation, and I think you should apologize. And I was furious. I said, “How can I roll back on this? This is art fighting against money. How can I apologize?” And then, she showed me some of the costs that might be involved. [audience laughter] A €1,000 just for being there, €10,000 for discovery. If it went to court, it could cost €250,000.” So, I said, “Okay, I'll apologize.” [audience chuckles] But I was deflated by the whole experience, I felt that, when she said, “Why don't you go home and have a think about it?”

 

I went home and I felt down, because this is not how this was supposed to end, this glorious story of the little guy fighting the big guy, all for this, just because it was going to cost me, I was going to have to roll back on my principles. And then, I reread the letter. I hadn't really read the solicitor's letter properly the first time. Solicitors’ letters, lawyers’ letters are written in Times New Roman font, which is the scariest of all typefaces. [audience laughter] I think we'd all feel a little better if lawyer's letter was written in Comic Sans. It just wouldn't hurt as much. 

 

And I read it. I read page two of the letter. And on page two, I noticed this line which said that, “Several others who were there that day also pointed out to my client the serious nature of your allegations.” And then, it started to fill in for me that perhaps what was going on was not this battle to suppress free speech, but the fact that this man had been slagged off and laughed at in front of his people by his peers, and he was just plain hurt. 

 

I started to realize that sometimes it's not necessarily big principles are involved, not necessarily the little guy versus the big guy, not necessarily that the little guy is always right. Because I had taught myself, I was fighting the man. Here was me, a little guy, striking a blow against the man. And I realized instead, I was just striking a blow against a man, and that's not that funny, as it turns out. Sometimes David may have been a bit of an asshole, [audience chuckles] and Goliath might just have been minding his own business. Thank you very much.