Comedy news: On The Road with Tiernan Douieb

In the latest installment of our series about the lives of travelling comics we ask Tiernan Douieb about his experiences of Leigh Delaware on the M4 and the rap battles with Tom Craine.

On The Road, By Tiernan Douieb

‘Why don’t we do it in the road?’ sang Paul McCartney. The answer of course, is because there are high chances you would get hit by an oncoming vehicle. If by some chance you were lucky to escape such consequences, the whole ordeal would be less than comfortable due to the tarmac or gravelly road service digging or rubbing against backs or knees depending on your preference.

I know roads pretty well. You might say I know roads more than the average Joe. Considering that a lot of Joe’s don’t work on the roads and some do, this average may be inaccurate. I would say using the median or the mode I definitely do know far more about roads than the average Joe, but using the arithmetic mean I don’t because it is very mean and always proves me wrong.

Every week, in my mission to provide mirth to audiences around the country I travel shedloads of miles. That is an official amount. Already this week (and its on Tuesday as I write this. And I start the week on a Monday, not a Wednesday so I’m not cheating or anything) I have done more miles than Miles Davies, Miles Crawford and the town of Miles, Iowa put together and slung on a buddy road trip film called Miles and Miles in Miles. Were my carbon footprint to go into a JD Sports, it’d ask for fairly large shoe and the staff would be as confused as they usually are when anyone asks them anything, as they’re idiots.

‘Do I enjoy all the driving? ‘ I hear you cry. Well firstly, stop crying. That’s far to over emotional and I worry you have a hormone problem. Secondly, yes and no. No, because there’s nothing to make you feel more sad and lonely than being able to hold hour-long conversations about favourite service stations (a toss up between the M6 toll services as it feels like your own private station due to the lack of people, or Leigh Delaware on the M4), preferred routes and whether or not anyone cares about average speed cameras.

No one’s life should involve such dull misuse of language. Then there are all the time where the last thing I’ve felt like doing is driving the breadth of the country to get home, resorting to keeping myself alive with the levels of caffeine that could wake the dead. I’ve recently become horribly addicted to sugar free Red Bull, a drink that once the sugar is removed, contains no natural ingredients whatsoever.  Add to that all the traffic, road closures, flat tyres and other variants and it can be mega turd-like at times.

Then the yes bit.  Small yes bits first – I always get home right to my door; if its cold weather then my trusty VW Polo keeps me warm and dry instead of freezing on a train platform; and I have vast amounts of gadgets that make my mobile office feel as comfortable as possible. But better than all of that is giving lifts to other acts. I have had a lot of fun listening to others tales of the circuit or life in general, joking about the gig we’ve been to, or are returning from,  or swapping names of bands with various other museos in the comedy world.

Special mentions go to the ‘dodging the cats eye’ game that Dave Haddingham told me about during my first 12 months of gigging, which I still play to this day, and the endless road trip rap battles that myself and Tom Craine take part in, which all stemmed from the day we tried to shout insults at the M4. Not forgetting of course all those passengers that bring satsumas, sweets and even (in the case of Andrew O’Neill) veggie sausage sandwiches.

I cant really complain about it. I love scooting up and down the motorways, seeing parts of the country I would never get to see otherwise. Ultimately I’d find it tough to survive without my little car. Not least because they don’t have pavement for pedestrians on the motorways.

On The Road: With Keith Farnan