I recently read a preview of Ardal O'Hanlon's forthcoming November 21 Richmond Theatre gig in the Richmond & Twickenham Times which began "Ardal O’Hanlon, who you may know as Dougal from Father Ted…". I wondered what O'Hanlon would be thinking if he reads the Richmond & Twickenham Times, as Father Ted finished way back in 1998. OK, publicity is publicity and tour tickets need to be sold, but it may be difficult as well as flattering to be continually reminded that the thing you are best known for happened 15 years ago. Maybe Neil Armstrong faced a similar conundrum.

O'Hanlon onstage these days is a sharp, genial storyteller, reflecting on everything from his childhood to politics and sounding nothing at all like Father Dougal (though admittedly he does look like a grizzled, defrocked older version). To his credit O'Hanlon addresses the elephant in the room, using his consummate skills to make sure that the sitcom milestone doesn't become a millstone. When I last saw him doing stand-up he referred with a postmodern glint in his eye to recent stories of child abuse in the Catholic church and said something on the lines that even fictional priests are nervous.

But this paradox of being known for something that is not particularly you is an ongoing problem in comedy where fact and fiction often blur. David Baddiel talks about being pigeonholed as a standard-bearer for laddism in his insightful show Fame: Not The Musical and Frank Skinner talks about having similar problems in a recent interview in the Telegraph. While the culturally well-rounded Skinner wants to riff about art and Plato he worries that some audiences still want him to natter about West Bromwich Albion. 

Skinner and Baddiel are at least being haunted by their youthful stand-up past that they are responsible for themselves. O'Hanlon is being haunted by a character he didn't even create. This is the inevitable legacy of playing an iconic sitcom role. Shortly before he died suddenly after filming the third series of Father Ted, lead actor Dermot Morgan himself had talked about the problems of being typecast: "I don't want to be the next Clive Dunn and end up playing the same character for years." 

Sadly Morgan's death meant that he never had to deal with the tribulations of typecasting. But for O'Hanlon the issue has a habit of rearing its head again. Even though he has played all sorts of parts, from a mild-mannered alien with super powers in My Hero to a serious role in the haunting stage play The Weir, which transfers to the West End in the New Year, he continues to be dogged by Dougal. Still as I think Oscar Wilde may have said, better to be remembered by the Richmond & Twickenham Times for something brilliant than not to be remembered by the Richmond & Twickenham Times at all.