Quickfire Irish stand-up Andrew Ryan is back with his biggest tour yet, Honest Capacity.

 

Newlywed Andrew is happy, confident and can drive a golf ball 300 yards. But he still has his impulsive moments and a habit of making bewildering decisions. Find out what has gone hilariously wrong and what has gone happily right in his life when he reveals all onstage.

 

Andrew hosts the hugely popular Q Radio Breakfast Show and is a regular on The Two Johnnies Late Night Lock In (RTE). He has also appeared on Russell Howard's Good News (BBC) and Comedy Central Live, as well as guesting on panel shows and podcasts in the UK and Ireland. 

 

He is also a social media star, with over 70 million views online and over 310,000 followers across Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.

 

 

 

 

Radio is Monday to Thursdays and I gig mostly Thursday to Sunday. I’m doing the majority of the tour from Thursday to Sunday too. I get out of bed around 5:20am. I get the car and walk in 5.56, 5.57 for a 6 o'clock start. There's some very important buttons that need to be pressed at an exact point and if you don't get it right you can get an email from management.

 

I don't get much sleep but it's worth it for something I enjoy. It's the same with comedy. I go to London a couple of times a month and after flights and hotels sometimes you can lose money on the trips, but I love doing it.

 

 

 

I lived in England for 16 years then I stopped doing comedy for nearly three years. I came back to Ireland and was caring for my mum for a year. Then after she passed away the pandemic happened and I found myself stacking shelves in B&Q. I decided that if this is my life now I'm totally fine with it. So when comedy came back after the pandemic, I didn't care about it as much and it went even better. Maybe I loved it a little bit too much.

 

 

 

I've been known to use the phrase 'I've come here in good faith and in an honest capacity,' normally when somebody's done something wrong to me. Like if a flight is delayed, I say 'I went to the airport in good faith and in an honest capacity.'...It's a fun show. I'm really enjoying it. I've had a lot of dramatic moments in my life, but I'm not bringing trauma to the stage. Just a lot of jokes and a lot of cheekiness.

 

 

 

Basically it's about how I've come off antidepressants for the first time in 21 years, I'm not telling people to come off anti-depressants, I'm sure they work for some people, but I found this new lease of life. I’m still a bit chaotic, but one small thing happened to change things. I won't say too much here but it's to do with getting a cat. Until then I had no interest in cats. I wouldn't even stroke a cat. 

 

 

 

I don't do yoga. I don't go to therapy. I don't read books. I just wake up and go ‘I’m comfortable who I am now.’ I make a lot of mistakes, which I talk about in the show. I'm still very impulsive. I wake up and go, 'let's see if we can get a flight to Spain for two days today for a Craic.' I live across the road from the airport so if there's a band playing in Europe I like I'll buy a ticket. I once flew to New York to watch a football match on television and the following night I flew back.

 

 

 

I bought a house over the internet without viewing it. I'm a bit of a risk taker. But it hasn't fallen down yet. I'm from a Nationalist background and my wife comes from a Protestant unionist background and the house I bought is in a Protestant area, which I was a bit worried about, but it turned out fine.  

 

 

 

I discovered comedy when I was seven. My dad was driving me to Gaelic football training and he was listening to a radio show called Scrap Saturday with Dermot Morgan (who went on to do Father Ted) where he would impersonate Irish politicians. I was too young to understand, but my dad pulled the car over because he couldn't stop laughing. I distinctly remember the road and everything. It was the first time I had a real kind of connection with my dad and I fell in love with comedy ever since. 

 

 

How did you start performing?

 

I grew up in Cork but moved to Manchester when I was 24. I worked as a waiter and in call centres and started to go to the Frog and Bucket comedy club. Then I got a job working there because I wanted to hang out with comedians. I did their Beat the Frog competition and started to win it and started getting gigs and got an agent. I was making headway on the circuit then I wanted to go back to be a carer for my mum.

 

 

 

It’s surreal. I did the SSE Arena in Belfast this year opening for Shane Todd. I went onstage at 7:30, but at quarter to five I was walking around Sainsbury's in sliders and I had a dirty T-shirt on because I spilled yoghurt on it. Then three hours later I'm doing jokes to 9,000 people. I actually turned down a 4000-seater arena for my tour because I thought it might be a bit too big a jump. So instead I'm doing all size rooms and my biggest is 2000, which is very exciting.

 

 

 

The problem with me is I come from a family of addiction. In my twenties I felt I was on a slippery slope with alcohol so I stopped and started running marathons instead. I was always very scared about falling into this tortured artist thing because I know that if I fall in there, I would stay in there. That's why I have Golf Bros, where we travel around and play golf. That's my balance from falling further down. 

 

 

 

I set up the first ever Comedians Golf Society in England – me, John Robins, Tom Rosenthal, Dominic Holland, Paul McCaffrey, Jimmy McGhie. I’m a sports geek. I've played soccer and rugby but I can play golf until I'm 90. And to be honest with you, I did a boxing match last year and I never, ever want to be punched in the face again. I think golf is safer.

 

 

 

I don't have a particular favourite. I think you have different favourites at different points in your life that mean different things. I'm not quirky, I'm anecdotal, but I love quirky comedians. Tony Law, Bob Mortimer, League of Gentlemen, Sam Campbell. There was a time where Dylan Moran was my Messiah and then I ended up working with him. It's so weird to say 'I watched your DVD 50 times and now I'm passing you a napkin because you want to wipe your nose on it.'