Fearless about fear

I’m about to embark on a tour of sorts with compadre and fellow funster Andrew Stanley. I’ve never gone on tour before. Well I have gone on plenty of tours, school tours, city tours and detours. But not with my name on the poster as such. I toured with my Jedimaster Des Bishop around the country a couple of years back, but that was opening for him with no mention of me anywhere on the posters, tour biogs etc. People arrived to see Des and I was sent out to humour them before the man himself came on stage. No pressure there then as Des was the man they had paid to see. It didn’t matter if I died spectacularly or ripped it up. It was a great experience and it taught me a lot back then.

This, however, is a different kettle of fish. Actually, while I’m at it, where did that expression come from ? Who in their right mind puts fish in a kettle ? And moreover, why would they have ANOTHER one, it being a different one ?! I digress.

This tour with Andrew sees us heading to various venues around the country to perform standup comedy. We cleverly called the tour the Eric Lalor and Andrew Stanley Standup Comedy Tour. Do you see what we did there ? It’s exciting for us to do this, but there is an element of fear. I knew when I was with Des that wherever we played, invariably it would be to a full house. Whether it be Vicar Street, The Cork Opera House or Live at the Marquee in front of 5,000 people ! Neither myself or Andrew are high profile. We are both doing well on the circuit, but outside of the circuit, nobody knows us. Andrew had a flirt with fame doing the I Dare Ya TV show with Damian Clarke and toured with Damo after the show. With this in mind, we have the fear. The fear that nobody will come to see us. The fear that after all the work and PR we do to promote the tour, it won’t be enough and people will say Eric and Andrew who ? In this day and age, where money is tight, people like to have safe bets. They don’t want to take risks and that is completely understandable. I have no doubt that myself and Andrew will put on a good show and the people who do come to see it will indeed enjoy it, but the fear remains.

It most certainly will not put us off and we have been told that tickets are moving already for some of the shows which is very re-assuring. I am looking forward to it immensely despite the fear and if you are in the area on a given night when we are in town, come along and we will put on a good show. We did over 500 gigs between us in the last year on the circuit, so somebody thinks we can do the job, in fact a lot of people do.

Standup comedy from two of the busiest comics on the Irish circuit coming to a venue near you real soon. Fearless !!!

Dates :

• 25th Sep – Ramor Theatre, Virginia, Co Cavan
• 2nd Oct – Kavanaghs Portlaoise
• 3rd Oct – Market Place Armagh
• 9th Oct – Draiocht, Dublin
• 23rd Oct – Roisin Dubh Galway
• 30th Oct - Portmarnock, Dublin
• 31st Oct – Spirit Store Dundalk
• 6th Nov – The Mill Theatre, Dundrum
• 7th Nov – Stables Mullingar
• 9th Nov – Balor Theatre Ballybofey
• 12th Nov – Droichead Arts Centre, Drogheda