Gimmick-free jokes? In Edinburgh? Whatever next. Channel 4's Mark Dolan talks to Emma McAlpine about his debut stand-up show and TV work to date.
“I’m really sorry but Mark’s been pulled over by the police for driving erratically so he’s not going to be able to make the interview.” The minute Mark Dolan’s PR tells me this, I inexplicably get the feeling I’m going to like him. My instincts are correct. The following day, after rescheduling, he bursts into my office full of apologies and warm handshakes, introducing himself to everybody and complimenting the building. We’re off to an amicable start, unnervingly so for Dolan: “I feel like you're going to Lynn Barber me. We'll have a lovely time, they’ll be laughter and then you'll make me sound horrid!”
Probably most recognised for his work with Channel Four, presenting shows like Balls of Steel and The World’s... and Me, this year Dolan is performing his first solo stand-up show in Edinburgh. Called Sharing Too Much, it’s a gimmick-free hour of jokes, on everything from family life to politics. Dolan tells me: “It will be anything that gets a laugh. I'm married, I've got two small children and I'm an idiot. I'm naturally foolish. I'm not a confessional comic but there is an element of me sharing too much, hence the title.”
While it may be his debut stand-up show, Dolan has plenty of experience on the live comedy circuit. He reached the final of the prestigious So You Think You’re Funny? competition in 2000, along with the likes of Russell Brand and Matt Horne, and for the last few years he’s been resident compere at Soho’s Amused Moose Comedy Club. Until now however, his TV work has prevented him from plunging wholeheartedly into stand-up.
“Between that competition in 2000 and now, I received a lot of opportunities to work in television, which I couldn’t turn down and I just didn't have the time to do that much stand-up. It was a problem because I hadn't completely bonded with it; the gestation period was too short.”
After launching new digital channel E4 in 2002 as host of interactive comedy show Show Me The Funny (which also saw the first appearance of Leigh Francis as Craig David), Dolan got his first big TV break in a hidden camera series for Channel 4: The Richard Taylor Interviews. Interviewing random members of the public for different jobs, posing as a benevolent employer Richard Taylor, Dolan put people at ease and consequently, got more comical footage out of them.
“We had to be careful because a few people who came to see us were quite unhinged and if you do a hidden camera TV show, the people in it need to be stable. I interviewed a woman for the estate agent's episode who was a lunatic and asked if she could bring her mother to work with her occasionally. It was comedy gold but we couldn't touch it. You can't use soft targets.”
As well as hosting hit Channel 4 stunt show Balls of Steel, more recently Dolan presented The World’s...and Me, a documentary series exploring the extremities of the human race from the world’s most surgically enhanced woman to the world’s smallest man. While some critics declared it exploited people, much like Louis Theroux, Dolan tried not to judge his subjects, and was in some cases, inspired by them.
“I admired all the physically extraordinary people who prevailed over their conditions and managed to have something resembling a normal life. All these people crave is to be normal, pop out to the supermarket, settle down, have kids. Less memorable were people who had chosen to be different. But the process by which they decided to do that to themselves was interesting. Like the world's greatest plastic surgery addict, Jenny Lee, who was 16 and beautiful and went out with a really nasty, controlling boy who was older than her and told her she was ugly. Just as she was defining herself she had someone else defining her.
“A lot of them turned out to be in very weird amoral situations which worked for them. Who am I to take somebody’s breasts away if they’re happy with the lifestyle they've had as a result? I think the way to approach a documentary is to present as much as possible and after that let people make their own minds up.”
Now the third series is over, Dolan is free to commit himself to his biggest passion, stand-up comedy. “At this stage I feel it's time to come out of the closet and admit I'm a comedian. I've tried lots of different things that I've enjoyed but it always keeps coming back to comedy. It's the love of my life.”
Naturally funny, charming and self-deprecating, it’s no surprise that Dolan is a TV presenter and compere. How his first solo show will be received remains to be seen but one comment he makes during the interview leaves me confident he’ll storm it: “The best piece of advice I've ever been given about comedy was from Bob Mills. He said: ‘Keep saying funny things’ which is genius! It’s exactly right.”
Mark Dolan: Sharing Too Much is at the Gilded Balloon at 7pm until the 28th August
.jpg)
Add an event
Review: Byzantium
20 years after Interview with a Vampire, director Neil Jordan cooks up the theme on a ...