Rory O'Hanlon

A Dublin circuit apprenticeship

O'Hanlon came up through the rooms rather than through television. His club biographies date his first stand-up to 2005; Chortle's listing says 2006. Either way the apprenticeship was the same one: the International Comedy Club, the Comedy Cellar and the Laughter Lounge, the last of which also used him as a compère — the job that teaches a comic to hold a room that has not come to see him.

Irish television came as guest work rather than a vehicle: RTÉ's New Comedy Awards, Republic of Telly, and Under the Influence alongside Des Bishop. He wrote as well as performed, contributing to the Irish Post, Hot Press and Chortle, and he acted in the short film Spring Clean, which reached the final of the 2013 Virgin Short Film Awards.

The other half of the trade was mileage. His representation lists gigs in Moscow, Berlin, Monte Carlo and Brussels, two New York clubs in Gotham and the Broadway Comedy Club, festival runs in Glasgow and Cardiff, The Stand's Best of Irish showcase, and a Perth Comedy Festival booking in 2016. It reads as the CV of a working club comic who went wherever the work was, which is also what made the delivery so quick.

The Edinburgh habit

His first solo Fringe hour, Ginger Nuts, went up in 2009. In 2011 he brought Is It Just Me That's Mental? and reached the Laughing Horse New Act Final. Have Jokes Will Travel followed in 2014, and Don't Drink Don't Smoke, Happy Hour and Confidence are among the titles since.

Edinburgh has functioned as a fixed point rather than a launchpad. The Best of Me ran from 2 to 25 August 2024, a 60-minute 17:15 slot at the Waverley Bar on a pay-what-you-want ticket topping out at £20. Back Again followed in 2025. This August he returned with Honestly, again at 17:15 and strictly over-18s, billed as his sixteenth consecutive solo show at the festival — a free-Fringe room, sixteen years in.

Not all of it has satisfied critics. Reviewing Confidence on 18 August 2019, Chortle's Alex Bruce credited the delivery and the crowd work but found the writing thin, judging that "the observations themselves are OK, but so one-dimensional, so generic that the typical audience member will have heard them before". The subjects were Trump, Boris Johnson, drink and vaping, and the complaint was that nothing had been added to them. It is a useful review to have read before watching what he does now, because the fix he found was not better jokes about the same things.

The D4 man

Morning Guys!!! is a different proposition from an hour of observational stand-up. The show is built on a character: a south-Dublin money man billed in the publicity as a finance executive, property developer and self-help guru, whose message is that inheriting everything is a fine basis for inspiring others. The listings state the joke plainly — the material has struck a chord with people from every walk of life, mainly in south County Dublin.

The character was built online before it was built on stage. Promoters credit it with more than 100,000 Instagram followers, and its subject matter, D4 money and Irish rugby culture, has produced the sort of testimonial stand-up rarely collects: the Whelan's billing quotes Johnny Sexton and Andy Farrell rather than critics.

Alongside his own shows he has worked as an opener on bigger bills, picked up by Paul Chowdhry and Clinton Baptiste for dates across Britain and Ireland — a route that puts a club comic in front of theatre-sized crowds long before he is selling them himself.

Where things stand, October 2026

The Irish run has escalated steadily this year. In April he played six shows over three nights at Little Whelan's in Dublin, from 26 to 28 April, at 6pm and 8.30pm, at €19.50, over-18s, with support acts on each bill. On 2 May he discussed sold-out Dublin dates and the business of comedy on Newstalk's Down to Business with Bobby Kerr. By 13 September the London date — a 7pm hour at the Bill Murray in Islington, doors at 6.30, £20 before fees, unreserved seating — had closed to a waiting list.

October is the theatre stretch, and four dates are currently on sale: the Gleneagle Arena in Killarney on the 16th at 7pm, Cyprus Avenue in Cork on the 18th, and two nights at the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin on the 19th and 20th, both at 8pm, booked through Ticketmaster with doors roughly half an hour before each show. The ten-week distance is the striking detail of his year: a small Waverley Bar room in August, the Gaiety twice over in October.

After that he goes back to the clubs rather than up a tier. He is on mixed bills at the Backyard Comedy Club in east London on 4 and 5 December, sharing line-ups with Josh Howie, Paul Revill, Andy Storey and Lee Hurst, on tickets from £7.50 to £20 depending on the night.

The show in the room

The format is a solo set rather than a production. The London booking in September was scheduled as a straight hour, 7pm to 8pm; the Fringe version runs 60 minutes; the Irish headline dates carry support acts and are over-18s throughout, which fits material that is less about swearing than about money, status and the specific social vocabulary of south Dublin. Nothing in the listings suggests screens, band or costume changes beyond the character itself.

On reception, the honest position is that no published press review of Morning Guys!!! could be found. The quotes carried on every listing are older and describe the club comic rather than the character: "presence, poise and timing" from Chortle, and "a joke every 30 seconds" from the Irish Times. The 2019 Chortle review sits on the other side of the ledger, praising the same delivery while doubting the writing. What the 2026 run offers as evidence is commercial rather than critical — six shows at Little Whelan's in April, a waiting list in Islington in September, and a two-night Gaiety booking in October — and it points to an audience that found the character online and then paid theatre prices to see it in person.