Irish comedian Dylan Moran was born in Navan, County Meath in 1971. Leaving school without any qualifications aged 16, Moran quickly became attracted to stand-up comedy and debuted in 1992 at a comedy club in Dublin, The Comedy Cellar. A year later, he won the Channel Four comedy newcomer's So You Think You're Funny award at the Edinburgh Festival, and began developing his comedy routines into a one-man show, Gurgling for Money, for which he won the prestigious Perrier Comedy Award in 1996, and which he subsequently took to a nationwide tour of the UK. His exposure at the Edinburgh Festival also led to him getting programmed at international stand-up comedy festivals worldwide.
Subsequently, Moran took to writing and performing for British television. He has starred in the BBC sitcom _How Do You Want Me? (1998)_ , and - more importantly - in 2000 he was commissioned by Channel Four for the sitcom _Black Books (2000)_ . He wrote and starred in three 6-episode series of this comedy. Co-starring popular British stand-up Bill Bailey , who was nominated for the Perrier Award the year Moran won, _Black Books (2000)_ sees Moran play a character close to his stand-up comedy persona: an unsociable misanthrope, reminiscent of the John Cleese sitcom character Basil Fawlty, that shares a great love of wine with one of razor-sharp put-downs of all things human. Also, his character Bernard Black's often surreal views on everyday things and on human behavior is close to his stand-up persona's dealing with them.
The same year the first series of Black Books aired Moran took his one-man show Ready, Steady, Cough on a UK tour, followed two years later by _Dylan Moran: Monster (2004)_ . This was followed by Monster II in 2004.
In the late 1990's, Moran also moved from doing stand-up to working on a film acting CV. He played opposite Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant in Notting Hill (1999) , co-starred with Michael Caine in _The Actors (2003)_ and had parts in the Simon Pegg comedy _Shaun Of The Dead (2004)_ and the Michael Winterbottom film _A Cock And Bull Story (2005)_ .
Moran's live stand-up comedy is unique in that it merges two strands of stand-up that seemed incompatible for a long time: sharp observational humor, and surreal and fantastical language-based absurdity. On the one hand, he has a clear influence from what could be called an American school of stand-up comedy that is heavily observational. On the other, Moran's comedy is characterized by a use of language similar to the stand-up comedy of Eddie Izzard and Ross Noble : surreal associative leaps between on the one side observations and on the other fantasies, verbally painting bizarre and absurd worlds, often through a use of stream-of-consciousness narration. His language is often highly poetic, resembling a James Joyce that has had one too many.
Moran is very reluctant to give interviews on his personal life and even on his career, a fact parodied in a staged interview inter-cut with the recording of his live stand-up show Monster on its DVD release.
Its been a while and we thought it was about time we updated you on what we've been up to. Our debut EP Little World is now available at our gigs and will soon be available from our myspace and facebook pages, you will also be able to download it from itunes, but we don't have a release date for this as yet.
To celebrate the fact that we have now reached 25,000 plays on myspace, we are giving you a free MP3 of Rockabye Baby. All you have to do is send your email address to queen.elvis@yahoo.ie and we will send it to you.
We have spent the last year rehearsing with a full band and are now ready to bring it on the road. You can get a look at us when we appear on Balcony TV this week with the full line up. We are currently taking bookings for gigs/concerts/festivals and can be contacted on the email above, or through our myspace and facebook pages.
Thankyou for your continued support in what has been a great year for us!
Michael Brunnock will be performing with his Irish Band "Little Palace" November 5th 8pm Whelans, Dublin November 7th 9pm Headfort Arms, Kells, Co. Meath November 12th 8pm The Backroom, Navan, Co. Meath Little Palace will be releasing their New Single "Beekeeper" from their latest album Invitation Time. We all hope to see you there. Keep Music Alive go hear a show.
My movie is being pirated! Read my blog and leave a comment because I would love to know what you think about pirating. Go to www.joelvalliefilms.com to read the blog.
Apologies for the generic message but we wanted to let you know that our new album, "Tales Of Absolution + Obsoletion" is out now and available directly from us! We have uploaded the first 2 singles for your enjoyment, please let us know what you think...
Please check our August tour dates and visit the official site when you have a moment. Your support is truly appreciated!!
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