Eleanor Tiernan is a beautiful, smart, funny woman from Athlone, Co Roscommon, Ireland.
Since starting comedy she has performed at the Kilkenny Cat Laughs Comedy Festival, the Galway Comedy Festival, in Best of Irish at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, at the Bud Light Comedy Revue and was a semi-finalist in the Paramount Comedy’s “So You Think You’re Funny?” competition.
Within just a year of starting stand-up Eleanor was asked to perform in Dublin’s Vicar Street for the RTE production “The Liffey Laughs” and BBC’s “One Night Stand”.
Eleanor studied acting in Dublin and you may recognise her from playing the part of ditzy waitress Emer on RTE’s The Cafe. Most recently, she starred in the play Help!, which she wrote with her two cousins and performed with great success at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Eleanor started working as a stand up four years ago and as she said she sorted of fell into it.
“I was doing more so improv work and more social gigs and didn’t know it would become a career and it’s still great.”
Eleanor’s gigs are an honest but exaggerated look at her own life.
“I suppose my shows are based on more personal experiences,” she said. “I’ll always jot down bits and pieces as I go along and exaggerate them a little for on stage.”
Every day is work for Eleanor. “I don’t really switch off,” she admitted. “Writing is an ongoing process and then it’s a matter of deciding on which material to use for a gig.”
While Eleanor is based in Dublin her work takes her to all parts of the country and abroad but she’s always shy telling people what she does for a living.
“Sometimes when I’m taking a taxi to a show the driver will ask me if I’m out for the night and I’ll tell him ‘no just work’. He’ll say what time do you start, I’ll say 9.40 and he’ll ask what time do you finish, I’ll say 9.50. He’ll say there are only two kinds of jobs that a woman can do in that time!”
While most of Eleanor’s shows have been received with great laughter like anyone she too has bad days.
“You’ll often get an audience who doesn’t like your piece and sometimes you’ll feel upset, but most the time it’s funny, you just take the good with the bad.”
While her friends don’t expect Eleanor to be a constant entertainment new people often do. “This is why I tend to not tell people what I do - also there’s a perception that comedians are all vain, needy and self obsessed which I am – ha!”
This isn’t Eleanor’s first year to the Cat Laughs but each year is just as brilliant for the comedian.
“I love Kilkenny,” she said. “The festival is one of the best in the world, we are treated so well and the atmosphere is brilliant. Plus people in Kilkenny get the humour, they know we’re only messing and understand the humour.”
While her famous cousin Tommy is great for advice and looks over some of her comedy sets, Eleanor is inspired by other comedians as well.
“I really like Stuart Lee and Hans Teeuwen, who’s in this year’s festival. He’s brilliant,” she said. “He doesn’t conform to the traditional way of comedy.
If Eleanor wasn’t a comedian she reckons she would be a whiny backpacker, refusing to return to reality!
