In the words of the Bishop

Mullingar is not a town unknown to comedian Des Bishop.“What is it with all the roundabouts?” he has, in the past, asked audiences the length and breadth of this country.And - and let’s not get indignant about this: they’ve laughed!This weekend, the talented New York/Irish wit will have the chance to reacquaint himself with - at least - the Dublin Road roundabout, the Tobacco Factory roundabout, and the Castle Street junction roundabout, as he makes his way to the Mullingar Arts Centre, where, on Saturday night, he takes to the stage with his current show, “My Dad Was Nearly James Bond”.It’s somewhat poignant, as at the moment, Des’s dad is engaged in a gruelling battle with lung cancer.But long before he was Des’s dad, he had a whole other exciting life in London.“He had an audition for ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’,” says Des, explaining how the show title came about.While that part didn’t come his way, he did act in other films.“We knew about this other life he’d had, he would tell us stories...he once lived a lie not unlike mine, but he gave it up to raise his family.”Giving up the world of theatre, and the excitement of his youth led Des’s father to work as a retail manager with the firm Burberry’s, and in New York, to which the family moved, his three kids were aware of the sacrifice he’d made. But, believes Des, the fact that he now has two sons performing - Des and his comedian brother Aidan - he sees as “payback” for his own sacrifices, “although perhaps he wasn’t always as confident he’d made the right choice”. Des’s other brother, Michael, is a teacher in New York.For most of the last year, Des has been in New York.“This time last year, I really didn’t expect to be here a year later wondering if I was going to have to go back at short notice,” he says, adding that in February, he went to Australia, fully believing he would receive word calling him back.“He’s been through some pretty ferocious treatment,” says Des.The Bishop family has had some experience at coping with cancer diagnoses: Des himself has recovered from testicular cancer; his mother from breast cancer.“It takes away the fear and the stigma associated with cancer. You just face it and that is that,” he says.It might surprise some to hear this, but Des believes there is a stigma associated with cancer.“People are overly-sympathetic; you become this ‘other person’, a ‘cancer patient’, not many other diseases give you that, and it’s just a strange thing. It’s almost like a disease and an identity in one.”His father’s illness has made him aware of how lung cancer patients are viewed almost differently, because of the association between smoking and this form of illness. “It’s the lowest funded for research, because it’s the one for which people have the least amount of sympathy,” he’s found. He has always hated cigarettes: he hates them even more now, but points out that for his father’s generation, the danger of cigarettes wasn’t known.WexfordDes has lived in Ireland since he was fourteen, his family having sent him to live with relations in Wexford. Ireland has been his home since then, and he’s been doing comedy since his early 20s, cutting his teeth at the International Comedy Cellar, the Cat Laughs in Kilkenny, and on tv with Don’t Feed the Gondolas.But he’s done much more than stand up and tell jokes: many people not hugely au fait with the stand-up scene would associate him with the tv series in which he’s been involved - “In the Name of the Fada”, in which he moved west to immerse himself in the Irish language; The Des Bishop Work Experience, which saw him take low-paid low-status jobs in Celtic Tiger Ireland; and “Joy in the Hood”, which saw Des get to know the communities in some of Ireland’s poorest areas. They were all hugely popular, and got people talking, and people still keep bringing them up with him.His efforts to learn Irish really captured the imagination, and now, he’s pretty fluent, although, he admits, better than speaking it than reading it.“I love it. Anyone who speaks Irish, I don’t speak English to them,” he says.Des, like many, reckons in ways, Ireland is better for the passing of the Celtic Tiger. But he’s not going to pretend he saw it coming.“I would prefer to have been a bit more astute and seen it coming,” he says, admitting that he too fell for the “soft landing” theory.“I’d had the same naive hopes as everybody. I always knew the property market would have to crash - but it didn’t stop me buying a house in 2005, so I’m not a fan of the crash, but I’m a fan of stopping going the way it was,” he says, going on to wonder again at the “insane consumerism” that he believes took over the country.He puts some of this down to Ireland’s “adolescence” as a nation.“It takes a long time to evolve, and the Tiger was almost like Ireland coming of age.“Ireland didn’t have the World War 2 experience, and European countries tend to be a little bit more cautious.”Des reckons that the Celtic Tiger days did bring out a lot of racism here, which he saw at first hand during the Work Experience series episode in which he worked in a fast food restaurant. He is a non-drinker, and doesn’t regret that when he sees what it’s like on the streets of Ireland’s towns and cities after the pubs and nightpubs close.As someone who is Irish, but who grew up in New York, he has an interesting take on life in this country: he’s an insider able to look through outsider’s eyes. But this new show offers a whole new set of observations, flavoured with the material he’s got through looking at his father’s life - and how it might have been had he become James Bond.Des’s Mullingar show kicks off at 8 p.m., on Saturday night and tickets, at €25, are available through the Arts Centre booking office, 93 47777.