REGINALD D Hunter may be from Georgia in the US South, he may be living in Britain for more than 20 years, but there are few places he feels more at ease than in Ireland - and Galway especially.
Reginald is returning to the 2022 Galway Comedy Festival to headline four different shows over three days. A festival regular of many years, and a firm favourite with Galway audiences, the three-time Perrier Award nominated American delivers provocative, challenging comedy, which is never afraid to set foot on difficult terrain.
Reg D and Ireland
Given the state the world is in, Reginald will have plenty to talk about at the Festival. At the same time, Galway will provide some relief from the chaos of geopolitics. “I always have a rollicking good time at the Róisín Dubh,” he told the Galway Advertiser last year. “it’s one of my favourite venues. It’s always a place that is conducive for rollicking.”
As well as that ‘rollicking’ atmosphere, Reginald also has culinary reasons for loving coming to Ireland.
“When I get to Ireland, I’ll be getting some Irish Stew,” he said. “My mother used to make Irish Stew. Nobody else in the South made Irish Stew. I don’t know where she got it from, but she used to make it. So when I come over to Ireland, I gorge on that for the first couple of days.”
Indeed, for a comedian who deals powerfully on the issue of race, racism, and prejudice, there is another heartening reason he loves being in Ireland.
“There is a natural affection [with Irish people],” he told The Bath Magazine, “because I’m not accustomed to running into large groups of white people where my blackness is a non-issue. Not pro or against, but a non-issue. It’s refreshing.”
And as he told the Sunday World, when reflecting on that same affinity: "We just 'get' each other, we have the same sense of humour.”
Comedy in a changing world
As well as Galway comedy stages, Reginald is a regular on TV, having appeared on Live at the Apollo, Have I Got News For You, and 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown. He also won acclaim for his two BBC series - Reginald D Hunter’s Songs Of The South and Reginald D Hunter’s Songs Of The Border.
Those stages and shows have heard what squaremile.com called “the most mellifluous voice in the business, a gorgeous Georgian purr that could charm birds from the treetops.”. It is a voice which draws the listener in and keeps their ears attuned. Reginald speaks with the confidence of someone who has thought deeply about the issues he raises, and who expects to be heard. Many of these qualities he attributes to his parents.
“I give my parents credit for my physical confidence,” he told The Bath Magazine. “My parents made sure that they spoke to us and discussed things with us and listened to our say. And what that did to me and my siblings was it made us expect to be heard when we spoke.”
Over the last five to six years the world has been changing, with competing voices in the social and culture wars becoming louder and more vociferous. Comedy has not been immune from this upheaval, and many comedians are having to negotiate new challenges between what used to be funny and acceptable, and what is now no longer funny and is instead offensive.
“Comedy has become more difficult,” Reg told the Galway Advertiser. “The rules aren’t the rules anymore. You cannot assume, when you go onstage, that everybody knows what you know, reads the same newspapers, or consumes the same media as you.
“People’s information has become customised. I wrote my comedy wanting people to take it home with them, as it was about issues that matter to all of us…but now the value systems are individualised. You tell a joke and one half of the room is ‘Aww No!’, and the other half is ‘You said it right!’”
More recently, he told alwaystimefortheatre.com he was “sick and tired of issues being difficult to talk about; it doesn’t matter what you feel about Brexit but it shouldn’t be this hard to talk about it”.
For Reginald, raising difficult issues and challenging his audiences, while doing so in a hilarious manner, and making them laugh out loud, is what he is about. It gives his shows spice, making them a treat for both the mind and the sense of humour.
“Part of being a stand-up comedian is being a contrarian that holds a position which happens to be a truth and yet can still be funny about it,” he said in the same interview. “It’s about walking across a tightrope with nitroglycerine: how do I tackle this subject that everyone clearly feels this one way about, but which has another aspect that is crucial to our survival to look at? How do I bring it up and risk my reputation by saying a particular thing and still getting them to go, ‘yes, fair enough’. That’s the trick.”
It is a trick that makes Reginald’s comedy a treat, and his view is always one that Galway is happy to hear.
Reginald D Hunter headlines the mixed bill shows at the Black Box Theatre on October 28 and October 30; the Tigh He-He Comedy Club in the Róisín Dubh on October 29; and the Comedy Club Crawl, also on October 29. Tickets are on sale via www.galwaycomedyfestival.ie
