Multi-award winning comedian Patrick Monahan back in Worthing after panto success

Multi-award winning comedian and Edinburgh Fringe favourite Patrick Monahan returns to Worthing with his new stand-up show #Goals.
Patrick MonahanPatrick Monahan
Patrick Monahan

Popular with Worthing audiences after he starred in Worthing Theatre’s 2016 pantomime The Adventures of Peter Pan as Captain Hook, he will be at Worthing’s Connaught Studio on Thursday, April 25.

Since Patrick started performing stand-up he has had a meteoric rise up the comedy ladder.

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He is now a regular MC and headlining act at the top London and UK comedy clubs including the prestigious Jongleurs circuit and the Comedy Store.

His television credits include Splash! (ITV) and Fake Reaction (ITV2). Patrick has also worked as host of Jongleurs Live! (Sky) and 12 Again (CBBC/BBC2).

His mixed background is often something he draws on.

“My mum is originally from Iran and my dad is originally from Ireland,” Patrick says. “He was travelling the world. He left Ireland and went travelling.

“He went across Europe and then across eastern Europe and was working in Iran. He was a welder, pipe fitter, and he met my mum.

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“He was working for the oil companies there, and we came back to the UK just after the 1979 revolution.

“He was there during the 70s, from 70-71, there for about 11 years, and it was great. In the 1970s, Tehran was a bit like Paris. It was very European at the time. It was very fashionable.

“ There were a lot of western things. The culture was that you didn’t drink, but the people were still very warm and friendly.

“It was still under the Shah then. He was not elected. It was still like a dictatorship, but a lot of it was still very liberal and easy-going.”

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And while it had to be done in what we might consider now a fairly old-fashioned way, there was no problem in Patrick’s dad marrying an Iranian girl.

“They had three of us. We were all born in Iran. I was about three at the time of the revolution, and by 80-81, the problem was that we were living right on the border with Iraq. As soon as the revolution happened and there was no stable government in Iran, Iraq went to war with Iran. Saddam Hussain wanted to take over Iran, and we were living in like no man’s land. All the soldiers were coming across.

“We stayed there for about a year. My dad left. He went to Iraq to get work. In Iran, all the oil fields had got bombed. Where he was working was all closed down.”.

But eventually the whole family got out, via Dubai and the Emirates – coming to the UK to live in Redcar in the north-east: “I could only speak Farsi at the time. We were all kids, and we went to Redcar because of the steelworks there.

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“There were pros and cons. They didn’t really have any immigration there at the time. It was just before the big influx, and at one point there were ten of us all living in the one house.

“I remember going to school and speaking Iranian, and the teachers obviously didn’t understand. I remember wanting to go for a wee and asking to go out in what I thought was English, but they didn’t understand, and so I just used to have to dash out myself.”

Tickets for Patrick Monahan are priced from £14 and are available from the Worthing Theatres box office on 01903 206206 and online at http://worthingtheatres.co.uk.

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