No matter what your job is, if you’ve been doing it for 25 years there are bound to be times when you get stuck in a rut.
Comedian Colin Murphy found himself in such a rut in recent years.
“Everybody thinks it’s possibly a glamorous job but it’s just a job and the same as every single job you get a little bit jaded with it after a while,” he tells Dublin Gazette.
“But then I was doing this gig one night and I was in the middle of one of those phases and it was just brilliant.
“Just something happened, I didn’t do anything differently. I don’t know what I did, something happened and it all sort of clicked again and I started to enjoy myself.”
He’s enjoying himself so much that he’s about to embark on his first nationwide tour in eight years.
The Bald Ambition tour covers a diverse range of topics, including Murphy’s distaste for a certain Conor McGregor.
“I’m not a fan of the attitude, that’s what I’m not a fan of,” he explains.
“It’s not really becoming is it? There’s no class about it.”
Sex and dating in the 21st century also leaves Murphy slightly baffled.
“I’m eternally thankful that I’m not single,” he says.
“It’s just horrendous. It’s perfectly normal for millennials who have grown up in this world but for me it’s horrendous.
“I talk about that a bit – not in a nostalgia ‘oh, the olden days’ – not that sort of Brennan’s Bread sh*t.
“It was sh*t then, it’s good now. But there are certain aspects of it that are terrifying and are just weird that we’ve sort of gotten used to and take as normal with sex and the way we find people.”
Murphy is still a regular on The Blame Game and is currently filming a new series, Colin Murphy’s Panic Room, for the BBC.
But he’s still fondly remembered by some people for the cult hit The Blizzard of Odd – including people who maybe shouldn’t have been watching.
“I still get people coming up and mentioning it – people who are way younger than I think should have been watching it but apparently they were watching it,” he says.
“There was a whole other group of people I didn’t know about that were school kids, because there were flashes of diddies and things like that and a bit of porn stuff that we used to take the piss out of.”
Murphy was also an integral member of The Panel on RTE, a show that attracted a high calibre of guest.
Richard Dawkins tuned out to be a disappointment.
“We just thought ‘this is all just show-business for you’ it was all about selling books basically.”
Suzi Quatro made a much better impression. “She was amazing,” he says.
“Somebody you had a crush on when you were a kid and then she’s there and she’s great fun.”
Murphy still lives in the North and – curiously for someone so closely associated with topical panel shows – he has some interesting advice on how to stay happy while living there.
“As long as you don’t listen to anything any of the politicians say, you’re alright. Your blood pressure stays down.
“Just don’t read the paper, don’t look at the gay marriage thing and don’t look at the abortion referendum. Don’t look at any of those things and it’s fine.”
The Bald Ambition Tour includes Dublin dates at Dundrum Mill Theatre (October 5), Draiocht, Blanchardstown (October 3) and Whelan’s (November 18).
Tickets are on sale now; visit www.thatcolinmurphy.com/dates for tour listings and bookings.
