Conversations with Darren O’toole

Today we’d like to introduce you to Darren O’toole

Hi Darren, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
The story of how I started comedy actually comes from London. I was a big fan of going to comedy clubs so I would attend them regularly after work on a building site and one night I’m sitting in the front row and the owner recognises me as a comedian and for some reason I said I was, I remember being dressed in a nice three piece suit, which was my fashion at the time. The owner talked to me and asked if I would perform the next week which I agreed.

I had never written comedy at the time, only poetry so I made some of my poems into songs and wrote some story based comedy. I asked my housemate at the time to borrow his guitar and learned 4 chords. When I went on stage I completely forgot how to sing and play guitar at the same time so I just strummed the odd chord. It wasn’t the best set of comedy ever performed but it was rememberable, the majority of people in that room that night ended up following me on Instagram which is always a good sign.

I think the guitar lasted with me for about 6 months until I just hated carrying a guitar around so I transitioned from a musical comedian to a straight stand up comedian.

Comedy is in a weird place right now where it is easier to make money from comedy through social media then actually performing in comedy clubs. So I have spent a long time working out what platform pays what and where to put my resources

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Comedy and social media has not been a smooth road because for 10 years I worked a long hour, high stress construction job. Most weeks working 60/70+ hours plus trying to find the time to write, perform edit.

There’s also been this whole cancel culture and watch what you say and when you perform everybody has phones and can record and edit out of context so it’s been extremely important to make sure everything you’re saying is funny but not too offensive that you’re going to make the news for saying the wrong thing.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
Stand up comedy is a very difficult thing to be the top of your game in because everyone has a different sense of humour and likes different comedians. One video you make can be funny to one person and not funny to the next. If there’s something I’ve learned it’s not releasing too much stuff though, quality over quantity. Now a days everyone wants to go viral so they release multiple videos every day, I’ve edited enough videos to last me a year but I won’t just release them. I’ve held most stuff back to see what happens with the tik tok ban and also I’ve recorded for American tv, so I’m kind of not going much until I see how I’m perceived on tv. If it goes well I have enough content to really excel me to the next level.

Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
To stay humble and down to earth, I don’t change who I am or how I go about things ever and no matter what ever happens I will stay humble.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @threepiecedarren
• Other: TikTok – @threepiecedarren