COMEDIAN and environmentalist Diane O’Connor will bring her show The Accidental Activist to glór on June 28.
Diane didn’t grow up expecting to be an activist, it just sort of happened, one minute she was holding a pint in the pub the next it was a placard at a protest.
A quick-witted comedy show about a woman trying to find her place in the midst of this mess.
The Accidental Activist doesn’t pull any punches but provides a consistent thread of hope and resilience for anyone worried, angry or eager to do more about the climate crisis we’ve been thrown into.
“It’s about the climate crisis, but more about my perceptions coming at it as an activist. I didn’t set out to be an activist, it just kind of accidentally happened,” she said.
“I was one of those annoying people, talking about the environment, climate, plastic, and I realised that people didn’t want to engage in conversation about the climate in that way. Then I thought maybe I can use comedy to do that. It’s trying to figure out my place in the climate crisis and what I can do.”
She was always engaged with environmental issues.
“I was always a bit of an environmentalist growing up, I was that annoying friend who’d be giving out about plastic and stuff,” she said.
“Then I kind of forgot about it in my twenties, I was off having fun, then in my thirties I got back into it. I was very anxious about the climate and the environment and I wanted to do something about it. I realised that engaging in climate action was the way to manage my anxiety. I paired that with comedy and it worked out nicely.”
The Environment is not Diane’s only inspiration as a comedian, she has many other sides to her comedy.
“I have been in comedy for ten years now. My first show was called Breastfeeding Al Fresco, it was all about my experiences breastfeeding,” she said.
“I like to handle the naturally hilarious topics! I started out through improv, then I thought stand up was just telling funny stories, I can do that.
“Then when I started I realised there was a lot more to it! I’ve always enjoyed making people laugh, comedy has always been a big part of my life.
“My general set, if I do a club set, I talk about relationships, drinking, friendships, just life stuff. So this isn’t all I do.”
She says people don’t expect to find humour around climate change, but she says there is plenty.
“The reaction to this has been really good. The main reaction has been people saying ‘how did you make that funny?’ It’s not really making the climate crisis funny, it’s not funny at all, but it’s also a gold mine for comedy,” she said.
“If you peel it back, how society is reacting, how we are reacting to it generally, we’re not going around like there’s an emergency happening at all. There’s a lot of humour in how we deal with it and in punching up at billionaires and big oil. It’s quite relatable I think, it’s looking at our own anxieties and how we’re reacting, but also at things that we can do.”
Diane O’Connor is writer and stand-up comedian from Dublin. She is a regular on the comedy scene playing some of Ireland’s favorite festivals; Electric Picnic, Kaleidoscope and Scene and Heard. She has featured on national radio and television; RTÉ’s Ryan Tubridy Show, RTÉ’s Climate Hero’s, BBC Radio Ulster & Ireland Am. She has also written for popular Irish publications such as Hot Press Magazine and The Journal. The development of this show was supported by Axis Ballymun.
Owen Ryan has been a journalist with the Clare Champion since 2007, having previously worked with a number of other publications in Limerick, Cork and Galway. His first book will be published in December 2024.