Patrick Kielty: 'The world is going in this sort of binary direction, which isn't good news' – Belfast Telegraph
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The comedian believes there are lessons to be learned from accepting other people’s perspectives
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Patrick Kielty
Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph
Patrick Kielty and wife Cat Deeley at the 67th annual Primetime Emmy Awards in LA
Patrick Kielty in Belfast
Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph
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Patrick Kielty has said that people outside of Northern Ireland could change their ‘binary’ way of thinking by viewing how peace was brokered here.
The Co Down comedian and presenter, currently on tour with his Borderline stand-up show, said lessons could be learned from “giving a little bit of ground” and accepting other people’s perspectives without putting labels on them.
Kielty said he hadn’t toured in six years because he and wife Cat Deeley had two young sons to look after, but also because he felt he’d had nothing to say. But events of recent years, including Brexit and its impact on the Irish border, had brought him back out on the road again with a new show.
“The world has kind of changed a little bit since the last time I was doing stand-up and it feels like we were trying to put people in boxes,” he told Ranvir Singh on the Lorraine show on Monday morning.
“You’re a Brexiteer. You’re a Remainer. You’re a unionist. You’re a nationalist. It’s news or it’s fake news. The world is going in this sort of binary direction, which isn’t good news.
“Northern Ireland is a place where we used to be completely binary — and if anyone saw the box set of Northern Ireland, well, that didn’t really work out.
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“To come back together, to make peace, we had to give a little bit of ground, chill out a little bit, so this show is a bit more like, ‘Here’s what we did. If you look at the world in a different way… maybe this is something you should think about.’”
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Patrick Kielty and wife Cat Deeley at the 67th annual Primetime Emmy Awards in LA
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Kielty, 51, described his satirical Borderline show as “very personal” and more of a memoir than a commentary on current world affairs. He said he talked about what it was like growing up as a child in Northern Ireland, the “amazing” things that happened and the tragedies, including the murder of his own father, Jack, who was shot dead by loyalist gunmen in 1988.
“My dad was one of many people, the innocent victims. There were a lot of them in Northern Ireland,” he said.
“I talk about that on stage. I say: ‘Look, this is what we had to go through to build something better.’ It’s all there.
“I’m able to laugh about stuff me and my dad did pretty much every day.”
Kielty also talked about family life and said that while living in the US and having two young sons, Milo (six) and James (4), the idea of undertaking a three-month tour wasn’t possible. Kielty, Deeley and the boys moved back to the UK two years ago and the comic made several critically acclaimed documentaries, including the Bafta-nominated My Dad, The Peace Deal And Me. He also made his big-screen acting debut, appearing in Stacey Gregg’s Ballywalter.
Hitting the road again with his stand-up show has been “lovely”, he said, and not as terrifying as he initially thought it might be. Better still, he said the tour fitted in nicely around family life.
“Essentially, people like to laugh at the weekends, so you get away Thursday, Friday and Saturday night, then you get to see the kids at the start of the week,” he said.
“It’s not really work. I can’t pretend this is work. It’s a series of minibreak weekends that I’m taking to talk about rubbish.”
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