By Conor O’Neill
Dundonald born and raised founder of the DLA (Dundonald Liberation Army) Facebook page -which now has over 85,000 loyal followers – comedic playwright, author, bookies’ joke-writer and stand-up comedian Stephen Large talks to Culture Crush NI about his ongoing tour ‘Sabotage’: how ticket sales have been surprising him, the benefits of Covid-19, diverse audiences, hecklers, and his plans for the future.
With the tour taking him to all corners of Northern Ireland, and with the shows strung out to close to a full calendar year, Large has, as usual, plenty to say. And with all his previous Culture Crush NI interviews, those who aren’t quite fond of the F word should probably stop reading now. To the rest of the you, Large always makes for a good read. To find out more on what makes him tick and for details on what to expect, simply keep on reading.
CCNI: We last talked in the April of 2023, you’d been doing open-mic nights and had just made your debut at The Empire Strikes Back. You’ve went from five minutes to now selling out two-hour long shows, how did you make such an impressive leap?
SL “I’m actually only onstage for an hour. I think what you’ve seen advertised is the running time for the whole night which is two hours. That includes opening time, people getting their drinks in and the opening act. The support act usually does about 15 to 20 minutes, the venues usually insist on an interval so people can buy more drink, and my audiences don’t disappoint in that regard. I remember having a play in the Waterfront, we had a matinee show on the Saturday and then the second show in the evening. The matinee crowd drank the waterfront dry and they had to go out and get more drink in for the evening crowd.
“I have to doff my cap to those who come along to support me, you can in fact be penalized by certain venues if you don’t have an interval because they lose out on so much money from the bar. Venues are always delighted with my crowd’s bar sales.
“It doesn’t always go so swimmingly, though; one time things got out of hand during the interval and there was a bit of a scuffle and the cops were called, the second act was delayed by about 40 minutes. Audiences who come to see my shows can be quite the rowdy bunch.”
CCNI: Back to my original question: how do you move from 10 minutes at open-mic nights to a full hour of stand-up? Is it a hell of a lot more writing or do you do a lot of ad libbing?
SL: “Definitely not ad libbing. Basically I started off with five minutes of material when I was doing the open-mic nights, they only give you five minutes because you’re fresh to the whole thing, and if you’re shite and dying on your hole, the audience is only subjected to five minutes before you’re off stage and replaced by someone who knows what they’re doing and can rectify the situation. Once they see you’re capable of five minutes they give you seven and then 10. From there you might get an opening slot somewhere which is usually about 20 minutes, and then you move to headlining which is about half an hour. From there it’s a solo show and that’s usually an hour.
“It is a lot of writing. So while it might be ‘untested’ on stage, some of the material has resonated on either the DLA page or the BBC’s short stuff internet series of comedy videos.”
CCNI: I’m interested in the title for the tour ‘Sabotage’. Is it the danger of you sabotaging the legacy of the work you’ve done this far?
SL: “The hour of the show is based on my life. I could have called it ‘I’ve Nearly Ruined Everything In My Fucking Life’, but ‘Sabotage’ is more succinct and much easier to fit on to a poster.”
CCNI: So the routine is more or less an autobiographical story of your life put through a comical lens?
SL: “Exactly. I start off with my childhood growing up in the 1980s in a working class, east Belfast suburb. It details what primary school was like in the 80s, then going to secondary school and all the trials and tribulations that that involves; there’s bits about me coming back into third year and everyone having stubble and their voices breaking and me apparently having alopecia from the eyebrows down and trying to fit in. Then there’s the blur of the partying in my 20s and some of the scrapes I got into there. I then focus on becoming a father and my life being turned upside down, how my priorities and responsibilities completely changed. I then move on to me entering my forties, wearing Crocs and putting on weight. The whole thing is just a recap of my 42 years on this planet.”
CCNI: With such a big gap between shows, and a lot of your work having a slightly political edge, I imagine the show will evolve as things change?
SL: “No, not at all.”
CCNI: So what people have seen in The Strand in December is what people will see in Ballymena in October?
SL: “Yes. The show won’t change. I have the hour, I’ve only performed it three times so far in The Strand. From the opening night you can gauge the reaction and you tinker with it a little. There’s no major surgery. I did drop a couple of bits that I thought would hit but maybe didn’t land and polished it a bit more. The MAC, Portrush, Armagh and Ballymena will all be getting the same show.
“You have to learn that hour, you have to know the material backwards, even a minor change can be off-putting.”
CCNI: Have you had the misfortune of being heckled yet, and if so, how do you deal with it?
SL: “To be honest with you, I hate it. You have your bullet points in your head, you know one cue to the next and if it’s just an odd grumble or a shout out you can say something back and put those people down, but if it’s a major heckle that rumbles on, it hijacks the entire thing. It disrupts the rhythm of the routine. The Strand is ‘Bring Your Own Booze’ and there was this group of guys who were obviously pissed and from five minutes in were just shouting away. If you engage with them they then think they’re part of the show and it quickly becomes a farce, so initially I just brushed it off, finally it got to the last 10 minutes and the ringleader got up to go for a piss and I gave him dog’s abuse. Thankfully he took it in good jest, as did everyone around him. You have to be careful; you do want everyone to get involved, but some people think if you engage with them it some how becomes some sort of duet. Audience participation can be great but it can derail the entire show.”
CCNI: You’re obviously well versed in the writing side of comedy what with the books, the plays, screenplays and jokes for a well known bookmakers, but what’s it like for you now as a performer? Tell me about the 10 minutes or so before a show. Do you go through vocal exercises? How do you relax, do you have people around you or go into a zone to concentrate?
SL: “For the first show I had a mate up there with me and we were just having a bit of craic. I might seem relaxed but the five minutes before a show you go through hell. You start doubting yourself. You know the material but seeds of doubt start creeping in.
“The opposite side of that is the five minutes after a show. You come off stage and it’s gone well, the best way to describe it is the five minutes before you’re thinking, ‘Why the fuck am I doing this?’ and then the five minutes after the show, that feeling is your answer.”
CCNI: And while you’re up there is it just a matter of going with the flow?
SL: “It’s weird; every single night is different because some nights certain jokes land and bring the house down, then another night the same joke gets crickets. Some nights throw away remarks get a good reaction, it all depends on the audience. The first night was mainly friends and family and old work colleagues , I knew more or less every single person in the room, but the second night was a completely different audience. The first three rows were pensioners. My humour is pretty close to the knuckle and I said to myself ‘Oh fuck, this might not go down well’. When I walked out I felt like Daniel O’Donnell’. I thought they’d got lost and thought this is the fucking bingo or something, but they all took it in good jest.
“I don’t know why but my audiences have been an eclectic mix and there has been quite a few older people coming along. I don’t mean that in a disrespectful way. I really don’t mind if they’re 16 or 66, it just doesn’t matter. It’s just interesting to see people of all ages, especially since my following has been built up through social media which you would normally regard as a younger thing. Anyway, it was interesting to see.”
CCNI: Why the spread of dates? You started off last December and finish at the end of October in Ballymena, is that down to the venues?
SL: “Yes. It’s a shit show to be honest. This was never intended to be to be a tour or a massive run of shows. Initially what I wanted to do was put on a one hour show at The Strand. The first show was booked for December and I put it on sale in August, I thought that would give me a good few months to get it sold out, rehearse the material and get everything polished, but the first show sold out in four days. I then contacted The Strand and asked if there was any chance of a second date and it sold out in a week, then I got the third date and it again sold out.
“Now I have the show in the MAC which has already sold out and I just kept on adding other venues. In an ideal world I would have done 10 shows over two weeks. That would have been beneficial because it would obviously be well polished and by the time I got to the final show I’d have known the material backwards. In typical arse-about-face-fashion I have managed to string this thing together from December 2023 to October 2024 and that’s simply because this was never meant to be a tour. The spread has all to do with the availability of the venues.”
CCNI: Are you still busy with all your other work? The writing for the bookies, full-time job and all the rest of it?
SL: Yes, just before you called I was talking with my content provider, but this is my main focus now. I had intended to get this stand-up thing going much earlier but then the pandemic got in the way. For two years fuck all happened, but that just made me more resolute and I thought to myself ‘When this shit show is over I’m going to to do it.’
“In a round about way I’m kind of glad it happened as it’s an infinite source of material. The pandemic is basically the first 15 minutes of my routine and it goes down really well. It put everybody’s lives on hold for two years, but I had to take the positives out of it.”
CCNI: You started off with five minutes at open-mic nights in the likes of the Pavilion and the Sunflower bar in Belfast, then you progressed to The Empire, now you’ve this tour on the go, I assume you plan to use this as a jumping off point to bigger and better things?
SL: “Absolutely. The idea at the beginning was a night in The Strand, a 180 seater venue, which in reality is no really big thing. I just wanted to see if I could do it and I’ve been blown away by the response. Now it has snowballed into what it is. The goal now is to see if I can sell out the rest of this tour, particularly in the more provincial places, and if there’s an appetite for it the next step would be that I’d feel more confident in going to bigger venues, The goal is to sell out these shows and then next year seek out bigger venues.”
CCNI: “Your humour might be considered quite Northern Ireland centric, do you have plans to bring it to further shores, maybe a run at the Endinburgh Fringe or something like that?
SL: Of course, I’d love to do that, but my main focus at the moment is this tour. I always have an eye on the next year. Edinburgh is definitely on my radar and I would love to take this show over. If this tour was to sell out that would give me the confidence to go to bigger venues. I would like to try the mainland. But my main focus is here in 2024.”
Tickets for the remainder of the tour will undoubtedly move quickly once word spreads and the reviews roll out. To avoid disappointment I’d advise to get booking now. Based on Large’s previous successes, this tour may just be your only chance to see him in such intimate venues.
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