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Comical chat about the dark side

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TOMMY Tiernan will be joined by author and Irish Times columnist Michael Harding on the Lime Tree Theatre stage for a conversation event focusing on Michael’s recently released memoir and his experience with depression.

 

When approached by Lime Tree Theatre director Louise Donlon about doing an in-conversation event with Tommy Tiernan, Michael admits he found it daunting, particularly because he is a fan but has never met the comedian.

The concept came about when Tommy Tiernan was interviewed by Ray D’Arcy for Today FM shortly after the release of Michael’s memoir Staring at Lakes.

“Tommy started talking how he was reading the book and how he thought it was a great book. The Lime Tree Theatre then approached me and asked me ‘would you be interested in having a conversation with Tommy on stage’. I said ‘no I wouldn’t, I’d be terrified because he’s so funny, sharp and brilliant’. I’d be a fan of his but you would be afraid to get on the stage with him. I thought about it for a day and they came back to me and I said, ‘do you know, it would be a lovely thing to do, two men talking about their lives and depression and trying to find the funny side of it,” Michael told The Clare Champion.

The book has been extremely successful and maintains its spot on the non-fiction best seller list since its release in February. Michael said it was a surprise to him that it has been so well received and outlined how it came about.

“I’ve been working in theatre for years and I was doing a one-man show when I got sick with a chest infection and it got worse and worse over six months. I kept touring the country and doing the one-man show and eventually I ended up in hospital. I collapsed. Really my whole body had collapsed and that caused depression, so I ended up for three or four months really depressed. I couldn’t get out of the bedroom.

“I was lying in bed all day and then I started looking back on my life. I began to think of all the different things I did. I was an ordained priest at one stage and then I was involved with Buddhism for about 17 years. I thought that everything I did was a glove covering death anxiety. I felt that death anxiety is really the core of our whole experience. We are all kind of worried about life being short and we’re mortal and we’ll disintegrate and we’re afraid of where we will go. I thought that was at the core of it. So I decided to write about the story of how I got sick and how I was depressed.

“Really how I got sick started with the collapse of the Celtic tiger. Like everyone else, I just put myself under too much stress. Worrying about money and the loss of money,” he said.

The columnist said he believes the book hits a nerve with people because everyone “has been through a serious trauma due to the recession”.

“It has left many people devastated, depressed, sick, ill and has led to relationships splitting up and all that. The other thing it has done is people need a sense of hope and the kind of hope that I have is in trying not to take yourself [sic] too seriously. I think for people who are sad, it is a good read and it is uplifting. Everybody says it doesn’t depress you further. It is uplifting because I treat the whole story in a kind of a comic fashion. Men like it because I’m saying things about men’s feelings that usually never get said and women enjoy it because they are hearing things about men that they don’t realise,” Michael continued.

Although he says he is 99% over the depression he suffered, he said he supposes it will never fully go away. He finds that exercise helps.

While writing the book helped him put his thoughts on paper, what really pulled him through was “my lady wife”.

“There was a great philosopher who said the only way we can be human is with other people, we can’t really be human when we are on our own. When a man needs support and he becomes vulnerable and he has a lover to support him that is a very powerful help and that would definitely be where I have found my help,” he said.

Michael has had a long and varied career. He spent many years involved with the theatre and recalled being in Ennis approximately 20 years ago when he worked with the late artist Jean Regan and cartoonist Bernard Dowd.

“I did a show with Bernard and Jean 20 years ago when we did a thing called Burying Brian Boru and we walked around Ennis as part of a festival and it was great fun. I was in Ennis for about six months,” he said. 
As yet, Michael doesn’t know what the format will be or what will be asked for the event and he has still yet to meet Tommy but he expects they will get an opportunity to meet and discuss it prior to the event.

“It will be one of those things where it will be a real live performance and it will all happen on the night. We’ll just chat and I’ll be as honest as I can and have a bit of fun I think it will be a funny night and I think there will be a chance for the audience to get involved,” he said.

Michael Harding and Tommy Tiernan will be at the Lime Tree Theatre stage Limerick on Wednesday, May 22 at 8pm. For booking details or further information contact the box office on 061 774774 or visit www.limetreetheatre.ie.

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