LIMERICK Post chatted with Deirdre O’Kane ahead of her night here on Thursday May 9. We are down to the last few grains of The Line of O’Kane as this will be the last performance of this show.
New television opportunities will occupy O’Kane’s busy schedule for the next few months, though she is not able to reveal too much about that just yet.
The Line of O’Kane stand up show deals with the drama of turning 50, the comedy dynamo’s experience of competing in ‘Dancing with the Stars’ up against kids half her age in the final and the joys of bring up teenagers.
“I love this show and I have been on the road with it for close to a year. Now it’s a thing of beauty. It’s a polished diamond, (laughs). I can’t believe I will have to park it so soon.”
For O’Kane, it is the price of living in a small country - she has to come with a fresh new show every few years. If she were based in the US, any show as good as this would have a life span of over five years.
“We Irish comics are very prolific. We have to be. I have suffered from musicians’ envy all my life - they are shot if they don’t go out and play their greatest hits.”
A Line of O’Kane will lift the veil on what happens backstage at a top rated TV show.
“A good chunk of it is my ‘Dancing with the Stars’ experience. I think behind the scenes is so much more interesting than what the public sees.”
Expect some hysterical stories from the back stage antics of the cast and crew. Deirdre revealed that DWTS was a lot more demanding than expected.
“It was quite a ride, four intense months. It was physically gruelling. You can’t go from moderate exercise to eight hours of dancing, seven days a week.
“Anti-inflammatory injections in my wrists and my calfs. Physio and laser treatments. I was fit to collapse and I talk about that in the show.”
Deirdre describes the professional dancers as being “like Olympic athletes.”
“I couldn’t believe their training regime - they just dance through pain - they just keep going!”
It was O’Kane’s dormant competitive streak that pushed her to fight for her place in the final three.
“I had forgotten that I had a competitive streak. I thought - ‘Feck them all - I got there’ and I was more than the combined ages of my fellow finalists.”
So can Deirdre dance like nobody’s watching these days on the dance floor?
“No! It’s gas, you would think that now but I can only actually dance with John. I can only do the jive to Imelda May’s ‘Mayhem’.”
And when it comes to being fabulous at fifty - what is Deirdre’s good advice?
“Everything in moderation, that is my regime. It’s simple, just move a bit and a bit of moderation, you will be grand.” laughs
2015 saw the release of feature film ‘Nobel’ starring Deirdre and made with her husband, filmmaker Stephen Bradley. Also starring Brendan Coyle and Liam Cunningham, ‘Nobel’ tells the extraordinary story of true-life heroine Christina Noble who overcomes the harsh difficulties of her childhood in Ireland to realise her destiny on the streets of Vietnam.
“I’m exceptionally proud of it and Christina was happy which was the most important thing. ‘Nobel’ was five years of my life and I made it with my husband. It was a dream that we were never sure that we would bring to fruition.”
The film continues to have a very healthy life on the Amazon streaming platform.
The film has received thousands of five star reviews from the viewing public in awe of the portrayal of “dauntless perseverance” in this “outstanding” and “inspirational” film on streaming site Amazon Prime.
Deirdre O’Kane brings her stand-up show to University Concert Hall on Thursday May 9. www.uch.ie
