(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) VIEWERS OF BRITISH and Irish television will be soundly familiar with the quick-witted comedy stylings of Dara à Briain. The mathematician/ physicist turned stand-up has presented topical BBC panel show Mock The Week since 2005 and has hosted numerous programmes and documentaries spanning a variety of genres including astronomy, travel and a series of interviews with Stephen Hawking.
He comes to the World Trade Centre this evening having filmed a brand new series of cult challenge show Robot Wars.
We spoke to Dara ahead of his travels to Dubai to find out what he has planned for tonight's gig.
It's St. Patrick's Day. Will that influence your set at all?
I don't really do anything for St. Patrick's Day anyway. I live in London and work in Britain, so we don't do an awful lot. I won't be sat out there pining to express my nationality. We're not short of opportunities to be proud of being Irish - we're in the European championships.
Do you play a lot of expat gigs these days?
Weirdly you don't because you don't often play where a lot of expats are. I've done a few gigs recently in Sweden and Norway. Those shows are for locals. There may have been a few expats in the Amsterdam one, but now it's very common for comedians to go abroad and do shows for people with English as their second language.
I used to do them quite a bit. I've been to Dubai half a dozen times in my career.
You'll do Hong Kong and Singapore and then Shanghai and Beijing. Shanghai's a banking centre so there are a lot of expats, but in Beijing where there wasn't any international industry to speak of. I was looking at some members of the audience thinking, you are running from something. I said, "None of you thought you'd be 'teaching English' at this stage of your life."
There's nowhere really else quite like the UAE with that kind of community. It is 90 per cent expat and has lots of different micro cultures from around the world. It's a modern version of the French Foreign legion.
Will you be drawing on your past Dubai experiences for your show?
I've not been there for four years and it changes so quickly. I started my last set with a story of something I did there, but I can't do the same story even though people would probably not remember. It's a funny thing, comedians think people have a lot longer memories than they actually do. We often think, 'oh I couldn't possibly go out and do that again,' but you could.
I'm coming from Robot Wars to Dubai. That's two weeks of hard television. I imagine my entire cultural activities when I get there will be going to a water park. I'll just want to relax and there aren't many jokes you can make out of that.
Do you still enjoy TV and specifically Mock The Week?
I enjoy it more now than used to. There used to be a lot of one liners with Frankie (Boyle). A joke used to start and Frankie would come out with this brutal one liner and then it would end. Now there's more of a conversation. There's a generation question now too. Hugh Dennis and me are quite old and the rest of the panel is regenerating. I like the running jokes now too. Every time someone sees a MegaBus I get tweeted.
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