Alison Spittle set for hometown gig in February

Eilís Ryan

Alison Spittle has gone back to her roots – which actually aren’t Ballymore, with which she is associated, but London.

“I moved over in November, so it’s been a little while now and I’m settled in,” reveals comedian/writer Alison, who admits that the move has had her effectively starting over in her career again, as she attempts to get established in the land of her birth, and indeed, the land of her father, who lives in Reading.
For, it emerges, despite a background in Scór, an in-depth familiarity with Irish local radio and an accent even more Westmeath than Niall Horan’s, Alison is actually half English.
Born in Harrow, Alison moved to Ireland with her mother Jennifer and three younger sisters when she was a child. They lived in Tyrrellspass for a spell – during which Alison attended Gainstown NS – and then moved to Ballymore, where Alison completed her primary education before heading on to Moate Community School.
Alison clearly still considers Ballymore as “home”, and visits regularly, and proudly references it in interviews, but she’s been out of it a while, having first moved to Dublin after her Leaving Cert to study radio production.
“I love Dublin: it’s a great place to live. If Dublin wasn’t so great I think I’d have moved over to London quicker. It’s a fantastic city; it’s small: it’s got all the entertainment you want; you can walk across it within an hour; it’s incredible.”
However, she’s loving London, and indeed was bemused – just before our phonecall – to spot actor Benedict Cumberbatch drinking coffee in the café where she was enjoying a natter with a friend.
Alison has made Camden her home: “I was very lucky: I found a place on Facebook and I moved in straight away,” she says.
“I’m very lucky because I did the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and also and a lot of international comedians come over to Kilkenny and the Vodafone Comedy Festival in Dublin, so I knew a few people before I moved, and I kind of made a ‘friend group’ there and there are loads of great Irish people who have helped me settle in – like comedian Catherine Bohart – and I’m really lucky, actually, that I made friends before I moved here.”
There’s no contemporaries from Alison’s Ballymore life in London – “so far” – she says, joking that they are more likely to be found in “Athlone or Australia”.
In London, Alison is, as she puts it, “starting from the start again”, but with the advantage of having a lot of experience behind her. A grafter, she has been a regular on RTÉ (Brendan O’Connor’s Cutting Edge, Big Week On The Farm, Republic of Telly, Des Bishop: This Is Ireland, Bridget and Eamon), and of course she was writer and star of ‘Nowhere Fast’ and ‘Culchie Club’, both also on RTÉ.
Alison already had her ‘The Alison Spittle Show’ podcast and has latterly also become guest co-host on the podcast ‘The Guilty Feminist’, currently rated 21st in the UK podcast charts. Her participation in The Guilty Feminist has seen her on stage at The Palladium, and she’s about to be part of a Guilty Feminist nationwide tour.
She also has other projects in the mix: “I am writing a play at the moment, and that’s going to be on in Smock Alley on February 19/20. It’s called ‘Starlet’ and it’s set in Westmeath.”
Still at draft stage, there is a bit of a race against time involved, as the performances are part of the ‘Seen + Heard’ festival for new plays but the yarn itself is all there: “It’s a fun adventure. It’s about two people going to the cinema; and he has a Toyota Starlet, and something happens at the end which one person feels grand with and which the other will remember for a very long time.”
A return to Edinburgh is also in her diary for this year – and, of course, she has her Irish tour, Alison Spittle Makes A Show Of Herself, which kicked off last weekend in Carlow, and which includes her February 23 gig at Mullingar Arts Centre. There’s a lot of commuting ahead: “My weekends are being spent in Ireland and all my weekdays are in the UK.”
The night of her Mullingar gig will give her a welcome break with her family in Ballymore, and, she hopes, a takeaway Chinese from Tenda in Mullingar – her favourite Chinese takeaway anywhere, bar none. “The best Chinese in the world!” she insists.
Alison made her comedic debut while working with iRadio in Athlone, having received the push to try stand-up from comedian Bernard O’Shea (of Bridget and Eamon fame), who also worked at the station.
“I wasn’t really interested in doing stand-up comedy at first,” she recalls, but she agreed to try five minutes onstage at a gig in Portlaoise.
“So I did it and I felt really good after it; the reaction was really nice – but when I think about it, I was probably terrible back then. But I had a great adrenaline rush from it and wanted to do it for the rest of my life.”
She’s not unhappy at all for the direction in which life has taken her: “I feel very lucky,” she admits.
In the future – if the opportunity arises – Alison would like to try life in America; and she’d like ultimately to return to Ireland.

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"A kind of genius" is how the Irish Times describes comedian Alison Spittle, star and writer of RTE's 'Nowhere Fast' and 'Culchie Club' and Tatler comedian of the year.
Alison is bringing her new show Makes A Show Of Herself to Mullingar Arts Centre on February 23.
Tickets priced from €14 are on sale now through www.ticketmaster.ie and from The Arts Centre, (044) 9347777.