In the name of his father

AFTER time out touring Australia, Canada and the US, Des Bishop returns to Ireland with a deeply personal tale of his father, Mike, who has been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.

Inspired by his father’s illness, the impact it has had on his family and their sense of humour in dealing with it, Des’ latest internationally acclaimed stand-up show, My Dad was Nearly James Bond, tells of a remarkable life tinged with regret.
Des will perform the show in Glór, Ennis on December 17 and 18. Des said that as a boy, he thought it was the coolest thing ever that his father was a model and appeared as a blind pilot in Day of the Triffids and had one line in Zulu. “His biggest claim was that he was very close to getting the role of James Bond. George Lazenby got the part and we never watched James Bond in our house as it reminded my father of his regrets about the career he left behind to raise a family. But in all the scrapes Bond got through, he never had to raise a family and there is no gadget that Q could ever have created to help with that,” Des comments.
His latest show has been described as captivating and thought-provoking, delivering a collection of very funny, yet emotional and stimulating material. “My Dad Was Nearly James Bond champions the real heroics of fatherhood by challenging common regrets and the ridiculous ideals of manhood that real, unslick men try to live up to,” a spokeswoman for the show explains.
Des’ last performance in Clare was about 18 months ago, also in Glór with his show Desfunctional, which was post In the Name of the Fada, which created quite a hype when his command of the Irish language became public knowledge. He currently lives near Dolphins Barn in Dublin, which has been his Irish home for about 12 years. He is recently back from a long visit home to his family in New York, helping to care for his father, who continues to undergo chemotherapy but is at home most of the time.
“This show is entirely about my father and effectively he co-wrote it, in that it is full of stories he has told to me. He was diagnosed with lung cancer over a year ago and neither he nor any of us in the family expected that he’d have much time. The doctors didn’t actually give us a time frame but they left us under no illusions of how ill he was. He was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer, which is pretty scary, to say the least. I’ve been over with my folks a lot since then and my parents are coming over to spend Christmas with me,” he says.
His father, Des explains, gave up acting so that he could get a ‘real job’ to provide for his kids. “He was passionate about acting and apparently was very good at it but he gave it all up for us. He worked in retail all of his life and while I never knew he had regrets about not fulfilling his acting potential, it came out recently that he did. It was what you’d call a latter realisation. I deal with that a lot in the show and some of it isn’t funny but it’s not intense or dark either but it is emotional. So far, people have had both tears and laughter during the show,” Des remarks.
The comedian doesn’t feel that it was hard to marry the two extremes of the emotions that go with your father having terminal cancer and performing an entertaining show. “Dad’s illness is a hard thing for him, for me and for all of the family but throughout his illness, there have been things that have been funny – some of the things that Dad has said at some of the bleakest times have been so funny. Also, some of the scenarios we’ve found ourselves in, be it with nurses or doctors, during sessions of his treatment. I have found that people want to hear about these stories and so many people can relate to them.”
Des describes the content of this show as his Dad’s life and also their family life as a result of his father getting ill. “It also deals with the role reversal that I’ve experienced with my father and how I’ve realised responsibility in myself for the first time, because my father really needs me to care for him. I’ve taken on this care-giving role to my father, and because I’m not a parent myself, it’s essentially the first time I’ve had to do that. For all of my life, my dad has been this strong man, who was very responsible and gave us good guidance and stability but now he’s sick and he needs me and the rest of my family to care for him and help him, so it’s odd but there has, believe it or believe it not, been elements of humour in that too,” he adds.
The performer was slow to get into his own struggle in coming to terms with his father’s illness, commenting, “It is what it is. I have my own thoughts on it all. I have my own understanding of parts of this scenario, which I share in the show but there’s other stuff that’s too personal and that’s just for me and my family. I have made a show out of it but it isn’t an easy situation for me at all. The show is a written thing based on my father getting ill. But in real time, we don’t know how long we’ve got. The show doesn’t change from when I put it together but my emotions about this and my dad’s condition is changing all of the time. I’ve learned a lot since I put down this show.”
He explains that the only reason he has been so public about his father’s illness is because he wants people to know what to expect in the show. “I suppose my father’s illness made me think about his life and my own and the story about him nearly being James Bond was one I wanted to tell for some time, so now that he’s going through this major life-altering situation, I felt it should be told and of course, his illness had added other twists and turns to the stories he tells, some of which I share in the show. I didn’t do this show for therapeutic reasons but in many ways, when I’m away from Dad, doing this show makes me feel more connected to him.”
Des’ father performed in parts of the show with him in Edinburgh for 18 nights earlier in the autumn. “Some of it was filmed for a documentary that’s being made about me and my dad, which deals with Dad getting back on stage after many years. It was great performing with Dad. He hadn’t done any kind of performance since the 1970s. For me, it was the ultimate experience, having my dad up on stage with me. He really was a part of the show then. It went down fantastically well with audiences,” Des says.
The show is currently on a near-nationwide tour and Des deliberately chose some of the smaller venues for its performances. “Glór is pretty much the biggest venue I’m doing the show in, apart from the INEC and the Cork Opera House. I intentionally planned that because I feel this show is suited to a more intimate venue and smaller crowds. A lot of what’s in the show is personal to me and my family, so it should be done in a more personal way. I wasn’t overly keen on bringing it to the Cork Opera House or the INEC in Killarney, because they are really big venues but demand for the show was high, so I compromised and I’m sure it will work out fine,” he adds.