Timing is everything!

LAUGHS Greene to perform stand-up show at Cavan Comedy Club

What would you do if you were uber-sensitive when it came to one particular feature about yourself - and you overheard people saying horrible things about you?

Say nothing but dwell on it obsessively for years on end?

Be brave and confront the person?

Well Aidan Greene actually did both – and then wrote a critically acclaimed comedy show about people slagging off his stammer behind his back. Fresh from another sell out run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this summer, the Drumlane man is set to headline tonight’s [Friday's] 'Cavan Comedy Club' upstairs in the Imperial Bar.

Happily Aidan embraces his stammer, with show titles like Stutter Island, and (500) Days of Stammer about stammering and falling in love.

“I only developed the stammer when we moved from Fermanagh to Cavan when I was four years old,” he begins, and is eager to stress this minimal uprooting was not some source of childhood trauma.

“I lived in Derrylin, and I literally moved a mile across the border, so there was very little change for me.”

A happy childhood, he was practically oblivious to even having a stammer until his teenage years.

“I’d stammer so quickly I wouldn’t really know I was stammering. The way I knew I was stammering was because I was sent into speech therapy and people were telling me I had one; people were concerned.”

There was no disguising it in secondary school.

“My stammer changed suddenly and I literally couldn’t talk at all,” he explains with a fluency that's only occasionally ambushed by short bursts of stuttering. “I had a very notable, pronounced stammer. People never really said anything that bad to my face at the time, which was interesting, I heard things said behind my back – second or third hand things said about my stammer.

“Anything I did hear, I made a huge deal of in my own head.”

While he let these slights swim around in his mind for years, he eventually confronted those who said them in a very singular way.

“I had a show in Edinburgh Fringe in 2018, and for the show I contacted all of the people, that I could remember, who had said horrible things about my stammer. Some of them I was in school with. For the show I got them to say all these things again, and I played the voice recordings of them saying it during the show.

Without exception the people he approached had no recollection of saying such things.

“The people who said them had no memory of saying them of all.

“I think that was interesting for me was, I had spent years and months after thinking: all these people think I’m a weirdo and a freak. But they had literally never thought about it again. It was an eye-opening thing for me at the time.”

Did any of the people express shame?

“Some were like, 'Oh God I don’t remember saying that at all – I’m sorry'.

“None of them are bad people and I don’t judge them for what they said aged 16, 17, 18. It was interesting that you say in passing – something you don’t even think about, can really affect somebody else.”

Hurtful comments didn’t always prove detrimental for Aidan, one snippy remark actually provided the motivation he needed to pursue his stand-up career.

“The first time I did stand-up was directly in response to some of the things people said about me. I remember one lad, I was chatting with him one day, and he said, he would like to try stand-up comedy. I said, ‘Oh yeah, so would I’.

“And he very quickly responded with: ‘No Aidan, I could actually be a comedian.’

Even at this remove, the weight of that blow lands squarely.

“At that point I was in a better place with my speech so I never really thought, oh I can’t do things because I have a stammer. As soon as he said it, something went off where I kind of decided – I’m going to prove him wrong.

“I always thought, I’m actually pretty funny, it’s just people can’t see it because I stammer.”

Unlike the rest of us to who make such rash promises to ourselves, shortly afterwards, Aidan actually grabbed a mic, stood up on stage and earned his laughs from a room of strangers.

“The interesting thing is," he recalls, "the first time I ever did stand-up I don’t think I stammered at all!

“I think because this was my first show I was working off pure adrenalin – I was ready to go.”

Timing

It’s a cliché at this stage that timing, is the essential skill in comedy. Is Aidan’s routine hampered or enhanced by the unpredictability of his stammer.

“I actually think it kinds of enhances it, I have a thing where if I feel I’m going to stammer on something, what I often do is I work with the stammer – so if there is a joke where I didn’t think I was going to stammer on it, but I’m stammering on it. I’ve been doing stand-up now for 12 years where I’m at a point where I now my craft, I’m able to change my jokes on the fly if I stammer on something. I can add in extra punch lines where there wasn’t before – it isn’t a thing where the joke is ever spoilt by me stammering.”

Aidan will this Saturday night return to the upstairs Imperial stage where he performed one of his first ever shows back in 2010. It's an occasion he remembers fondly as “It was a big deal for me to even have a gig at all”.

The Cavan Comedy Club was launched in style last week with Kevin McGahern and Ed Sammon, reportedly putting on a great night for the full house. Aidan's eagerly anticipating his turn on stage tonight, before the club moves to its monthly slot.

“I feel I’m a lot better of a comedian than the last time I was doing stand-up back in Cavan.

“I feel it’s a great place to do stand up, I’ve never had a bad show in Cavan. I think outside of a few big acts who come in, it gets skipped over a little bit. I’m just glad there’s a club now where people can go see stand-up in Cavan.”

The doors open at 7pm and the show starts at 8pm this Friday.

Tickets to see Aidan Greene can be bought through the Cavan Comedy Club Facebook page.