ASK TERRY Alderton about coming to Galway, and the last thing he will give you is the standard “Oh yeah Galway’s a great city, I really love it” most performers trot out. For Terry, coming to Galway is coming to a city where there is a “funky bohemian atmosphere you only get in the west of Ireland”.
After 18 months of lockdown, no live shows, and only Zoom comedy gigs available, Terry - like many other comics - is counting down the days to this month’s Galway Comedy Festival, to having that chance to stand in front of an audience and, as he says “bring the joy, the craic, the happiness”.
“Comics in the UK, we go to Ireland and come to Dublin, and Dublin’s great, but I always say to my fellow comedians, ‘You’re on the wrong side, you need to go to Galway, that’s where it’s happening,” Terry tells me during our Monday morning conversation, and while Terry has three shows at this year’s laughter fest, it is the late night shows at the Róisn Dubh - always a highlight every year - he is most looking forward to.
“When you go into the Róisín, into those shows hosted by Karl Spain, who is a fantastic comedian, you have the audience, and that funky bohemian atmosphere you only get in the west of Ireland. Yes, they have paid to be there, but the audience are part of the furniture and they know their comedy, and standing around are all the clowns - your peers, the other comedians - watching each other. There is a magic there I can’t explain, but it’s amazing, just amazing.
“The festival itself is amazing, as there is so much love from the top, from Kevin Healy and all those involved in running it. They care about comedy, and it shows. It’s about fun, it’s about having a good time, it’s about great clowns.”
Enduring lockdown
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For Terry, as for many, the lockdown was a strange limbo-like experience. While audiences relished the Zoom gigs comedians treated us to during that time, comedians found not being able to eyeball the audience in the flesh dispiriting.
“I have this strange love affair with comedy, there are times when it is all brilliant, and sometimes, it’s ‘I don’t want anything to do with you anymore’,” he says, “but when that decision was made for me, and I couldn’t do it anymore - we were always told showbiz was bullet proof to all recessions - I was, “Oh, OK!’. Now I can’t wait to get back to comedy, and I’m embracing everything. I like to see the whites of people’s eyes, the person laughing, the other person who hasn’t a clue, the guy who hates me. That spurs me on to survive, gives me the fight or flight for the set.”
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While we are at the beginning of the end of the Covid pandemic, the horrorshow that is Brexit rumbles on. “Ireland is still in the EU, well done, not like us idiots” says Terry. “You can see what’s happening here - petrol shortages, empty shelves - if you’re not laughing your heads off at us you should be. We have a wonderful Tory government and Boris Johnson is such a great leader. Oh Brexit, it really is a case of be careful what you wish for.”
The drama of The Voices
While Covid and Brexit are likely to find their way into many comedians’ sets at the festival, Terry will not be going there. “It’s going to become hackneyed very quickly,” he says. Of course there are few, if any comedians, quite like Terry Alderton, whose multi-voiced, multi-personality, shape shifting sets are as unforgettable as they are hilarious.
His comedy combines using an array of voices and characters, often in competition with each other, and with Terry himself - think of it as a solo singer singing three part harmony on his own. I ask him about ‘The Voices’ as he calls them.
“What do you want to know,” said the growly Voice. “Yes, what does he want to know?” says the higher pitched Voice. Then Terry is back, to answer for him and them.
“I wanted to do something no one had done before. Don’t turn your back on the audience is a golden rule, but I thought, ‘Well I’m going to do that’. I can also have these pancis of thought about what to do next, but I can’t stand in front of an audience and say, ‘I’m sorry, I’m feeling a bit unconfident at the moment.’ There was also the advice from my mother, that if I was going to do stand up, make sure the audience doesn’t know what’s coming next, but what if I also don’t know? That’s what I like doing, and it’s a more interesting way of talking about what is happening to me.”
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Another point of origin for The Voices was the Drama Triangle, a model of dysfunctional social interactions created by American psychiatrist, Stephen B Karpman, which describes how people can present and think of themselves as ‘victims’, ‘persecutors’, or ‘rescuers’. Terry decided to be all three at once.
“That came about in the depths of my darkness,” says Terry. “Two voices were goading me on, and it became a comic vehicle to explore fear and loathing, laughter and happiness. There is also Liam and Little Philip, they are all extensions of me.”
This sporting life
Prior to comedy, Terry was a footballer, and was goalkeeper for Essex club, Southend United, who were unfortunately relegated from Division 1 (the old 4th division for, like me, football fans of a certain age ) and now play in the National League (the old non-league league for, again, football fans of a certain age ).
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“I was good, but not good enough,” he says of his time between the sticks. “Even at National League level you have to be very good, which shows how good the level is of people in the Premiership, but having played football, that often gets me involved in charity matches played by comedians, so I’ve ended up playing in big football stadiums, the like of which I’d never have played if I stayed in football, instead of becoming a comedian!”
Terry Alderton plays the Galway Comedy Festival which runs from Tuesday October 19 to Monday 25. See him in the Róisn Dubh (October 20, with Micky Bartlett, et al ); Town Hall Theatre (October 21, with Ross Browne and others ); and the Galmont Hotel (October 21, with Andrew Maxwell and others ). Tickets and booking are via https://www.galwaycomedyfestival.ie
