Jon Kenny is back from the dark place

Later next month, comedian Jon Kenny will arrive in Moate, the latest pit-stop on a new stand-up comedy tour. Moate is, in fact, almost a homecoming for Kenny: while he is a Limerick man, he reveals that his roots are, in fact, firmly in the midlands, his father having been from Athlone, and his mother from Ballinasloe. "I have loads of relations in Athlone: the Hardimans, the Earlses - loads of relations." Fit, healthy, in fine form - and safely through the "dark place" that hit him unexpectedly a couple of years after he came through his battle with Hodgkins Lymphoma, comedian Jon Kenny is having great fun with … the Celtic Tiger. "I mean: spas. Health spas. When I do my shows, I say: "How many men here have been to a spa? No man has been to a spa! "Irish men don't even like undressing going to bed! "And umbrellas: Irish men don't ever have umbrellas." He laughs at the very thought, as it is the maddest image ever. And suddenly it is. Jon is, he admits, getting great material from the excesses of the boom years - and audiences are laughing with him. It's all good, because it's reassurance that he made the right choice when he decided last year to go back to stand-up, what he started out with, long before the days of the legendary "D'Unbelieveables". Jon reveals that after his recovery from cancer, there was a spell when performing was the last thing on his mind. When he returned first to performing, five years ago, it was too early after his illness, and he had to slow it down a bit, to the extent, he jokes, that he could probably now do with a bit of a "kick up the a***" "I need to be out there, doing more, because now, I have no excuse: my energy is back. I have been getting my energy and my enthusiasm back. "I was in a very dark place - and didn't realise it, thinking it was normal to go to bed at 7.30 because I would be upset, and small little things would upset me, and it's coming out of it. "That energy I was lacking, I have often tried to describe it... if your energy isn't right, it's hard having your head right - or that's what I think, because I'm a f***** for analysing. "I had no enthusiasm for anything, and when you have no enthusiasm, you have no energy. "For me, I think it was my energy levels and as they came back, I got better in my head as well, and now, I have an enthusiasm for things. I want to go out and do the gigs and for them to be good, and to enjoy them. "I really wanted to get back to where I started, in the 80s, doing stand-up, and found my way back to doing that again. "It was a bit scary at the start, but the material has begun to come more naturally and more easily, because you learn, and you improve - and I enjoy the 'freefall', which I can do a lot more on my own. "But going back after so long, you have lost touch with a lot of things, a lot of skills I had when I was working on my own, so it's really been a learning experience since September." It is, he admits, "terrifying". "It can go wrong at any time. That can be just you; it can be just your head too: you can underestimate the audience - the chemistry of each audience is different - then you start to question yourself: you're grasping at things. The vulnerability is still there." Not all of his scripts are pre-written: he prefers being able to go off on a tangent, down a new avenue, work with what's working with whatever audience he is in front of. With the rebirth of his stand-up career, all those characters we've seen Kenny create during D'Unbelieveables days have been retired. "I deliberately wanted to stay away from them, and even now, I'm going back further from them again," he says, explaining that the stand-up is more "him", more about the real Jon Kenny. "What I'm finding now - I don't know is it because of my age - a small bit of maturity, or more confidence, it sounds crazy, but I suppose its different… it's a much more personal thing. For me it's a lot more personal, a lot more intimate, that is what I try to achieve now." Jon's agent, bookings manager and organiser is Margie, his wife - a social worker who became a teacher, but who gave up her teaching job when he became ill, and became his agent when he went back on the road. Since his illness and her resignation from teaching, they've spent more time in each other's company than ever before - something which some couples could find testing, but which has never proven a problem for them. Ssitting at the breakfast table the other day, working out various dates and things they had to organise, one of them suddenly remembered… "Oh… the 27th: that's our anniversary!" They've been together for 27 years, and are, they laughed together during that breakfast moment "not doing bad for 27 years". Jon's focus is not about performing all the time, touring all the time: he wants to have enough money to be able to pay the bills, but after that, his concern is quality of life. "We all need deadlines, or we all need a little bit of something to push us along, and I have been slow to embrace anything which would push me too much, and I'll say, 'I don't feel like that', and you do get a bit complacent - especially where we live (Lough Gur in Limerick): you are away from the buzz of things. You do have to make yourself go and do things but you think: 'If I do that, I'll have to be in Dublin for a month…'." It's probably too easy to reject jobs when your wife is your manager, he laughs, going on to joke that his fear is that she might dump him as a client and take on two or three performers. The couple are parents of 17 year old Aran, who just last week snuck off into Limerick the day after his birthday to sign up for the Reserve Defence Forces, and 14-year old Leah, who spent that same evening on stage with the Limerick County Youth Theatre. She may well be following in her father's footsteps: Kenny started his performing career as a musician, then joining the company Theatre Ommibus as a dance and mime performer. "It was a big influence on me although I didn't realise it at the time, and that had a lot to do with D'Unbelieveables." He went solo in the 80s. did some work for RTE, principally on "Davis at Large", sketches on Sunday nights, and there was his legendary hit single: a reggae version of the traditional Irish ballad, Spancil Hill. Then came D'Unbelieveables, his partnership with Pat Shortt bringing the two firmly to the front of the Irish comedy scene with their still memorable shows and videos. Fr. Ted fans will also know him from his appearances on that series too. He quips that he's "never had a 'real' job". Kenny's spent time living in Dublin, and time living in London, and this April returns to London to do a run at The Tricycle theatre in Kilburn - his first time performing in the UK for many years. He has a busy run underway at the moment, having in the past couple of weeks played in Cavan, in Monaghan and in Kilkenny. His Moate show takes place on Friday, March 19. The original all-round nice guy, family is important to Kenny; community is important to him, and sending his audiences home happy is important to him. A great night lies ahead for those attending his gigs. Jon Kenny is appearing Tuar Ard in Moate on Friday March 19. Box office: 090 6482042.