Comedy of the Week - Dan Tiernan: Going Under

Episode Date: March 31, 2025

Dan Tiernan doesn't just perform stand up - he attacks it. In Going Under, he debuts his unique brand of furious, unpredictable and wildly entertaining comedy on the radio, covering living with dyspraxia, becoming a dinner lady, and his sister's cancer diagnosis.An exhilarating mix of raw personal chaos, cutting observations, and gloriously queasy gags, recorded live at Backyard Comedy Club.Written and Performed by Dan Tiernan Produced by Ewan McAdamProduction Manager - Laura Shaw Executive Producer - Charlie Dinkin A Daddy's SuperYacht Production for BBC Radio 4.

BBC Sounds music radio podcasts. So my name's Dan Tiernan, I'm 28, I've got a condition called dyspraxia. That affects my spatial awareness, my coordination. It's not why I look like this. That's a coincidence. There's people listening, trying to work out what I look like. You can't. It's not possible.

The words are not in the English dictionary. I think if I had to describe what I look like to someone who's never seen me before, I'd say that I look like I like baked beans. That does the job, doesn't it? I've got to be in the energy about me. Not only do I like baked beans, that's all I eat. If I don't have my beans, I'll die. I walk into restaurants like, no menu.

I'll have the beans, please. It was stressful for my mum growing up. She had to buy thousands of cans. You'd hear her in the supermarket panicking we cannot run out of beans Dan will go berserk if he thinks we're running low what if he bites again I've always wanted to be a comedian my whole life. I couldn't do stand up when I was a kid though. So I did the next best thing.

I was a magician. A dyspraxic magician. I'm slow of hand. It's tough being a magician when you've got dyspraxia. You've got to do your show in the evening, then spend the next day burying all the animals you've accidentally murdered. I had some bad gigs as a dyspraxic magician.

You know you're having a bad gig when you hear a six-year-old say to his mum, we better not be paying for this. Hard to know what job you're going to do. I remember that advert growing up. Do you remember that advert? You could be a Royal Marine. You could be a Royal Marine. I remember watching that like, could I now?

Could I really? Come on! Let's go! I'm gonna be a Royal Marine! Mummy, I'm going to war! I hope they serve beans! Ha ha ha ha! I don't think the Royal Marines want the spraxics. Like you don't hear that in the adverts, do you? If he can drop a phone, he can drop a bomb. LAUGHTER Not sure on what they're after.

I don't think I'm cut out for war. I feel like no matter how hard I tried, I'd end up doing the wrong thing. You know, like... If I was one of the 9-11 hijackers... I think I'd end up landing the plane. LAUGHTER Oh, shit!

How have I done that? Sorry lads! I could not do that again if I tried! All the lads are dead angry with me. All the American passengers are clapping. I hate it when they do that! I wish I knew how to clap. They weren't hard to get gay people in the army though.

Don't ask, don't tell. We won't ask you if you're gay. You don't tell us if you are. That doesn't quite work with the spraxics. Imagine, I'm there, licking a landmine. They're like, Tynan, what's wrong with you? I'm like, I'm not allowed to say. But I'd get back if I was you.

But I'd get back if I was you. I'm interested in the army though. I found out about this thing called stolen valour, right? Stolen valour, if you don't know, it's where, it happens a lot in America, it's where someone pretends that they've served in the army and they haven't really. And there's these mad videos, right, where there's someone who has served in the army and they haven't really. And there's these mad videos, right, where there's someone who has served in the army and they see someone going around taking credit, sometimes taking money,

and they're wearing like fake military garments or medals. And there's these videos where they see them and they can tell that they're not the real deal. So these ex-veterans start like recording them and asking them questions, trying to catch them out. And these videos, they go really viral. And I've watched, they always get so angry in them. And I think they're overreacting.

Like at the end of the day, it's just someone wearing your old work uniform. I used to work at KFC. I saw a guy on the train wearing a KFC cap. I didn't go and confront him. You all right, mate? Nice cap? Really? Nice sushi? Which branch did you serve at? Tell me which branch.

Name all 11 secret herbs and spices. You're a fraud! I'm calling the Colonel. I didn't... I didn't... I didn't... I didn't... I didn't... I didn't... I didn't... I didn't...

My last job before comedy, I worked at a primary school, right? I was a lunchtime supervisor. I'm not making this up. I was a dinner lady. I was a dinner lady. I was 25. 25. That's like 11 in dinner lady years.

It was a big step up for me, that job. It was a huge step because before that job, I worked at KFC. And let me tell you now, supervising a child, very different to supervising a chicken burger. It is, you mess a child up, you can't just hide it and eat it on your break. Offs, I don't like it when you do that.

Head dinner lady, she was mad was mad right her name was Maggie. Maggie should have been in the Royal Marines. Nothing would get past this woman. She was on it once we were clearing up the canteen all the kids are playing outside they finished our lunch. Maggie finds a full sandwich hidden underneath one of the tables. Maggie starts looking for clues, right? She's trying to work out whose lunch it was. She picks the sandwich up. She sniffs it.

That's gluten-free bread. Dylan Lewis, year six, bring him in. I'm stood there like this as a mad day in the office. I'm about to watch Maggie waterboard an 11-year-old celiac. What is going on? I'm a year old celiac, what is going on? I work there with a lot of mad people. I work there with a Jehovah's witness. She was a homophobe.

I'm gay, I like to make that clear. I find it puts the women at ease. LAUGHTER You can feel that relief in the room, can't you? They can't hear this, but I'm seeing a lot of women relax right now. I'm like, thank God for that! We're safe! You are safe, ladies, gentlemen. You could not be in Morday.

Yeah. Yeah. Hard to be gay when you're dyspraxic. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hard to be gay when you look like this.

Yeah. Now, I go to gay pride. Looks like I've just been drawn in by all the colours. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now I go to gay pride. Looks like I've just been drawn in by all the colors. I've got no game, man. That's my problem. I recently, I plucked up the courage to message this guy. I fancied him for ages, right?

I messaged him on Instagram and he saw the message. He didn't reply and it proper hurt my feelings. I was like, was it the message? Did I creep him out? All the message was, is I just said, hey, and then I did two kisses. That's all right, isn't it? It was a voice note.

Oh. It was a voice note. LAUGHTER Hey! LAUGHTER Look at that! Nothing creepy about that! It's confident! It's sexy! I didn't almost look like a creep though, because that night I was scrolling through his Instagram,

I did the worst thing. I accidentally liked a photo from 2018. I did the only thing you can do in that scenario. I like them all. I'm not good at being gay, man. I'm not good at being gay at all. Sometimes I look at women's breasts. I'm not meant to be doing that. I do. Sometimes I find myself looking at... I was on a train the other day, right?

There was this woman there, and I couldn't stop looking at her knockers. I don't know what you're meant to call them. I don't know the lingo. Anyway, I was looking at these big, bad Babylon's, and I... I couldn't take my eyes off them right and in my head I was just like your dad would be so proud I get a lot of trains though you have to in this job trains trains are trains are trains are a nightmare right I was getting a train after a gig from Sheffield to Manchester. Sheffield to Manchester is normally a dead easy journey. Two stops, 50 minutes.

But I'm stood on the platform waiting for my train and the announcement comes on. 40 11 15 train from Sheffield to Manchester Piccadilly Calling at door and totley Grindleford Havasage Bamford Hope Edale Chinley New Mills Central

Strined Marple Romilly Brebury Brinington Reddish North right about Bellevue, Ashbury's, and Manchester Piccadilly is canceled. I'm stood on the platform, I'm feeling suicidal, and I don't even have anything to jump in front of. And I don't even have anything to jump in front of. Oh, man. So this Jehovah's Witness, remember her?

This Jehovah's Witness from Workright, she's a homophobe, and she said her main concern with me being gay is that I might influence the other men we work with and make them gay. And it's a fair point, I know what I'm like. Do you believe that though? A Jehovah's Witness accusing a gay man

of going round trying to change people's minds. So... LAUGHTER APPLAUSE I mean, we never go knocking on doors, do we? Imagine if we did, though. Is the man of the house in? LAUGHTER Never knock on my front door again. I can try round the back door.

Yeah, moved out my mum's house. I miss living there, but I had to get out of there. I was living there with my mum and her partner, Nick. And I... I try and hide it, but the truth is, I don't really get on with Nick! He's got annoying habits, right? Like little annoying habits that build up and propagate to me. Like every night before bed, he makes toast.

Instead of lightly, gently spreading the butter, he's one of those who proper digs at it. How annoying is that? That's annoying, isn't it? Yeah. And then he shags my mum. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no! That's my mummy! He's got a lot of tattoos, Nick, right? He's covered in tattoos.

And my mum, she used to hate tattoos. She's gone and got her first tattoo. She's got an owl, right? It's this horrible drawing of an owl, and it's on her forever. And I get it, it's her body, her choice, but the thing that annoys me, she keeps going on about it. I'm so glad that I got my owl.

And the thing I like about it is I got it for me. I didn't get it for anyone else, I got it for me. I didn't get it for Nick, I got it for me. I don't even care what Nick thinks of the owl because I didn't get the owl for Nick, I got it for me. I didn't get it for Nick, I got it for me. I don't even care what Nick thinks of the owl, because I didn't get the owl for Nick, I got the owl. For me. The owl, it's on her back. I don't even care what Nick thinks of the owl,

because I didn't get the owl for Nick, I got the owl. For me. For me. For me. For me. For me. How is that for her? How is she looking at that?

What is she? No! It was Nick's birthday recently and I wanted to make an effort with him. He's difficult to buy for. I asked him what he wanted and he was like, oh damn mate, don't worry about it. I don't know, just get me something I wouldn't choose myself. So I got him a framed picture of my dad. So I was also living there with my sister Phoebe and she's a similar age to me which

is annoying because we're always getting like compared to each other. And at the end of the day, we're just good at different things. You know, she's good at making this noise. What's the point of knowing the house if you can't do this, isn't it? Nick's got a daughter as well. He says his daughter is proof he's a feminist. Because he named her Emmeline. After Emmeline Pankhurst,

a leader of the suffragette movement, her mum wanted to call her something different, but Nick wouldn't let her. LAUGHTER If you didn't get that one... Here you go, have one of these. I got much closer to my sister Phoebe recently, right, because a little while ago my mum wronged me and she explained to me that my sister Phoebe has been diagnosed with cancer and I looked at my phone, My phone was on 10%.

I plugged it in. I thought, I can't have that dying as well. It's going to be alright. You've got to trust me, man. I know it feels uncomfortable to laugh about, but anyone who's been through something like this knows that laughing about it is the way you get through it. Phoebe has been laughing about it since day one. I spoke to her on the phone and she told me that she had acute lymphobastic leukemia. A lot of the time it's fatal and best case scenario it'll take years to treat. And I tried to make her laugh. I said, Jesus, Phoebs, and you, Ginger.

and your ginger. And she said, not for long. At the time, that was like the funniest thing I'd ever heard in my whole life, right? I couldn't stop laughing. And then it hit me and I started crying and she said relax Dan I'd still rather have this than whatever it is you've got sadly cancer affects a lot of people there'll be plenty of people listening to this you've had a relative diagnosed with cancer and I hope you don't mind me joking about it but when you find out that a relative has been diagnosed with cancer you get

hit with this wave of adrenaline you feel like you'll do anything in the world to help but in reality there's nothing you can do to help you're powerless you can't just turn up at the cancer ward do you need a hand I'll give you a hand very resourceful. Have you tried plugging her in? I worked a treat on my iPhone. Never mind any of this chemo. Stick her in a bag of rice!

Can't do that. You can give blood. That's a great way to help people with cancer. You've got a bucket appointment. You can't just turn up with a bucket. Take the blood. We know you need it. This is what the sacrifice wanted.

You can't do that. That's murder. I found out the hard way. I don't really like needles and stuff, but it felt like the right thing to do. So I booked an appointment. Now, the rules have changed, but at the time, the woman explained to me that if you're a gay man and you've had sex with another man in the last three months, then you can't give

blood. And this made me very angry. I was like, well, with regret, that means that I qualify to give blood. Because... I'm going for a dry patch, baby. I am, man. And I'm trying to get out there. It's hard, man. I'm on Grindr. It's a scary place, Grindr.

Terrifying. Lot of dick pics on Grindr. Let me tell you now, every time I take a dick pic, I use an app that makes it look dead tiny. Yeah. The app's called Camera. I'm not good at sex. I'm not. And I think it's because of porn.

I think watching porn has ruined sex for me. I've picked up bad habits from it. You know, things that don't work when you're actually having sex. Like, for example, at the start, I'll do an advert.

You could be a royal moon, you could be a royal moon, you could be a royal moon, you could be a Royal Marine! Every time I do this show, there's an hour left by the way. I'm dyspraxic, I get extra time. Anyone leaves, it's a hate crime! Every time I do this show, I speak to audiences afterwards, and every time they ask me the same question,

how's Phoebe doing? Is your sister Phoebe okay? And every time I'm like, this isn't Phoebe's show. How's Phoebe doing? This is about me. Is Phoebe on radio four? Let me have my moment! Truth is, Phoebe's doing really well, so she's finished her treatment.

She still has to go for regular check-ups and all of that, and she's not out in the woods. Leukemia treatment does take a very, very long time, but compared to where she was when she got diagnosed, she's in an amazing position. But she hasn't always been. There was a period when her bloods weren't recovering and she convinced herself that that meant her bone marrow had been damaged. So to put her at ease, the doctor said,

we may as well start looking for a potential bone marrow donor now. And it's very hard to find a transplant. But there's a one in four chance of a perfect match if you have a sibling they sent in the beanie boy to save the day they wanted my marrow They wanted my marrow! I had to do this test and weeks went by and I've never wanted anything more in my life than to be a perfect match because it would make Phoebe's chances of survival so much higher.

Weeks went by and I get this call and they said it's a perfect match you and Phoebe have the same bow marrow so I hung up the phone straight away and I rang my sister and I said Phoebe there's something dead important I need to tell you sit down and she said you're on speaker I'm here with mum and Nick She does it as well. Family thing. And Nick says this one sounds quite sensitive I'll leave you free to it because in real life he's the nicest guy you'll ever meet. But he said leave my mummy alone! He's genuinely such a nice guy, honestly. He really is. I'll just say he's not because it's funny.

I don't even like baked beans. I've got a girlfriend. I said Phoebe it's a perfect match we have the same bow-marrow and before Phoebe could say anything my mum just hits us both with this speech. I felt like we were in a film she was like look Dan I know hopefully we're never gonna need it but the fact it's there is incredible and apart from it increasing Phoebe's chances of survival there's something deeper going on like I can't explain to you what it feels like as a mother to have one child that is maybe gonna die

and the other child that you've created simply by existing could potentially save the other one's life. The power that that brings me as a mother is unexplainable. And then Phoebe went, I do not want his bone marrow. No way, not happening. What if I catch it? I come out of a hospital cancer-free for the first time. I give me some beans.

I just want to finish by saying, when I first started writing this show, I did ask Phoebe if she minded me writing some pretty dark jokes about her diagnosis and she said no. No, she said yeah, she said you can do the show but in return can you please tell all of your audiences about the Anthony Nolan register. So it's basically there'll be loads of people out there who are desperate to find a bone marrow match and people don't know how easy it is. You don't even have to leave the house.

You can register today dead easily, and if you do a swap, if you're a perfect match, then you could potentially save a life." She said, "'Everyone, particularly under 30, should be on that register.' I said, "'Brilliant, Phoebs. I'll get on it now.' She went, "'Don't you dare. You're mine!''

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE You're mine! The show was written and performed by Dan Tiernan and produced by Ewan McAdam. This has been a Daddy Superyacht production for BBC Radio 4. From BBC Radio 4, this is What? Seriously? I'm Dara O'Brien. And I'm Izzy Suttie. And in our new series, we're bringing you short stories and tall tales. What Seriously? is packed with real life strange but true stories that make you go What Seriously? and provide you with excellent social ammo to impress your friends. The twist is we don't know how each story unfolds and we'll have to figure it out one

fragment at a time with our special guests who each have a mysterious connection to the tale. That's right. I am your spy expert. And I don't really want to bring you back to the real facts of the story because you're making me laugh so much but I feel like I should. We're the only country in the world that ate the animal on our crest. And I never know whether to feel terrible or brilliant about that. All these engineers trying desperately to reduce the amount of dust in space and you

get Izzy taking up a balloon full of glycerine. Wow! You're welcome. Shut that one on the house. You come up with all the stuff in your house. I know, right? It's like I'm reading from a sheet or something, but no I haven't. Join us for What's Seriously?

from BBC Radio 4. Available now on BBC Sounds.