Introduced on The Paul O’Grady Show as ‘the only Irish Iranian in the business’, Patrick Monahan is bemused by the furore surrounding his birthright. After all he’s from Teeside and still managed to emerge unscathed on to the comedy stage. Katherine MacAlister talks to this hybrid comedian about making it big, spooning and comfy chairs.

It’s little wonder that Patrick Monahan’s brothers pushed him on to stage in a London pub to ‘talk’ to the audience, because during our interview he scarcely draws breath. “My theme is always ‘feel-good’ and doing nice things, but this one is about good deeds although it’s very tongue-in-cheek.

“So I talk a lot about hugging and spooning and free hugs, that’s about as controversial as I get. “But it’s because of my Irish dad. He’s the storyteller and it’s the way I grew up. When he’s around I can’t get a word in edgeways.” That’s hard to imagine.

Patrick’s parents met while his Irish father was working in a steelworks in Iran, and when the revolution started, he brought his Iranian wife and young family back to the UK. “I was three at the time and couldn’t speak English, so when I got to school in Teeside I was always weeing in the yard because they couldn’t understand it when I said I needed the toilet and kept calling my mum in,” he laughs.

And yet Patrick hadn’t even considered comedy until he visited his brother in London. “My brother took me to this room above a pub and said I should get up and have a go, so I asked the landlord and he agreed. There were 16 acts doing five minutes each, and an audience of about 10. “And some people got up and talked about their breakdowns or their wife leaving them and I wondered if this was some form of therapy, but I had nothing to lose. I didn’t know what I would talk about but I had such a good laugh. And although it was only five minutes it felt like 30 seconds. And I thought ‘I think I can do this’. So I came back a week later and just talked.”

And it worked. Winner of ITVs 2011 Show Me The Funny, he’s played The Albert Hall and is now a regular headliner on the comedy circuit. So how did Patrick find his forte? “Well, there’s such a cross section in comedy, from the puns and one-liners to the dark and very dark, and some people just want to offend and talk about taboos. And while that may work for a few, I’m on the other side. I don’t want to shock everyone. So my thing is to come along and be entertaining and talk about nice things to make you feel better,” he says. And although Patrick is obviously the nicest man in showbusiness, he’s obviously narked about being tagged ‘the Irish-Iranian’, because he doesn’t want to be pigeon-holed. “It’s not something I created myself and I don’t talk about my upbringing in my show. I mean why would you? And why would anyone want to know?“ he asks me. “I want them to see Patrick Monahan not ‘the Irish Iranian.

“But it doesn’t matter, everything has worked out. In fact my main problem is that my half an hour on stage is always 45 minutes, but I’d rather be doing that than doing 20 minutes and then panicking because I’ve run out of stuff to say.

“ So just think of me as a mini-me of Ken Dodd, and just bring a comfy seat or a cushion.”

  • Patrick Monahan is bringing his show Hug Me, I Feel Good to The Mill in Banbury en route to the Edinburgh Fringe on Tuesday. Call the box office on 01295 279002.