“Christ alive, this interview is making my head hurt”

Fresh from opening for Ricky Gervais and Bill Burr on tour, the brilliantly dry and self-deprecating Sean McLoughlin brings his acclaimed new show to Bristol this month. Brought to town by Bristol promoters Chuckle Busters, Sean in his new show Hail Mary examines the human race at its current crossroads: on one path lies the future, with its twitchy technology and mega-corporations who know us better than we know ourselves, and on the other lies the past and all the conflict and mystery that entails.

In the middle stands Sean, trying to plot a course for both himself and mankind. What’s it like to slip in the Google rankings for your own name? Can you date a girl called Alexa in the tech age? Is faith really a thing of the past?

We caught up with Sean to wrestle with some of these existential teasers.

Well, Sean, what *is* it like to slip in the Google rankings for your own name?
I share my name with a megastar YouTube gamer, a couple of noted sportsmen and a renowned professor of Islamic studies. We are all engaged in a strange battle to be number one on Google rankings for our own name and the leader-board shifts dramatically depending on the news cycle. I quite often get offered work meant for the YouTuber – I’m inclined to start accepting some of these jobs just to see if anyone will notice…

So the show is about (among other things) the divide between those of us who embrace, and others who resist, societal changes and technological advances? In which camp do you sit?
Yeah, that’s the core of the show, I’d say. The clash between the past and the future is always there. Even the most futuristic minds in Silicon Valley who are using nanotechnology to fight ageing are still products of thousands of years of human history.
I have no idea which camp I sit in. I have a smartphone, a laptop and a Twitter account. I also have a whole shelf of CDs and a copy of Citizen Kane on DVD. I imagine to some I’m a very modern man and to others I’m a luddite.

Sean McLoughlin examines the human race at its current crossroads in new show ‘Hail Mary’

Do you think happiness is harder to find in today’s very complex world, with so many calls to our attention from social media, divisive politics, worries about the very future of the planet etcetera? Or just as difficult as ever but in different ways?
You do know I’m a stand-up comedian and not a philosopher, right? I mean, I’ll have a crack at answering this but I make my living by telling jokes about bodily fluids to drunk people, so don’t hold your breath.
I think happiness for the average person is more attainable now as it ever has been, though obviously you still need luck on your side. We learn more about ourselves and our world every day and so the ball’s broadly in our court in terms of finding a happy way to live. There are still those variables like death and disease and random natural disasters that always creep in though, so who knows? I just try to enjoy it and give to charity whenever I can. What else can a person do?
Christ alive, this interview is making my head hurt. Usually people just ask about my favourite chocolate bar or something.

Can you explain your choice of title for the show?
It’s to do with my undying love of Mars bars.

This show feels a little less bleak than some of your past shows. Have you become a more optimistic person? Or has your life improved since, say, 2015’s Whatever It Takes?
Strangely enough I’ve always felt that I was a pretty optimistic guy and I always tried to show this in my work. I hoped people would see in my early shows that I was in a bad place but that I was defiant and wanted things to get better, but I accept that I wasn’t able to convey these feelings properly to an audience.
Whatever It Takes was different though. It’s the only show I’ve done which was totally downbeat and defeatist and this reflected how I was feeling at the time. I really made a hash of a lot of my twenties, but slowly but surely I’ve taken control of my life. I now feel comfortable in my own skin and I’ve got good people around me.

Sean McLoughlin performs Hail Mary at Tobacco Factory Theatres on April 7. For more info, visit www.tobaccofactorytheatres.com/shows/sean-mcloughlin-hail-mary

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