Roger O'Sullivan on Fekken and the Edinburgh Fringe

It’s been quite the year for Roger O’Sullivan. One of the breakout stars of the 2025 Fringe, the Irish comic landed a surprise nomination for Best Newcomer at the Edinburgh Comedy Awards, won the Comedian’s Choice Award at the festival and has just sold out his debut run at Soho Theatre. Now, he brings the show back to Scotland.

O’Sullivan is introspective towards his craft. With a gentle, musing nature, he reflects on his Fringe time with a giggle. “It almost didn’t happen,” he confesses. “The venue dropped out a month beforehand, so I was ready to call it a night, until my friend Alison Spittle pushed me and started calling venues, and eventually PBH [and Hoots] had a spare room that I was bunged into.”

From a rocky beginning, O’Sullivan’s Fringe journey only got better. “There was a shift when word got out; I’m still not used to people deliberately buying my tickets. It’s one thing to grab a show on a whim, but anytime someone tells me they’re a fan and wants to see me, I still have that instinct to say THANK YOU SO MUCH, IT'S ON THE HOUSE!

“It’s a funny thing. The first fan I had of the show was a guy called Jonathan Masters. He said he loved it and despite having never directed a show, he saw something in it and wanted to direct. Then a few days later he went into brain surgery. It’s a strange vote of confidence, but he did end up being the director!”

There’s also something contemplative about O’Sullivan; he seems to purr out his anecdotes and observations with the softest touch. It’s this tone, in tandem with Fekken’s content, which set his debut show apart from the crowd. In it, O’Sullivan imaginatively combines tales of coming-of-age in rural Ireland with an affinity for 90s video games.

Although the combination of gaming and the bucolic Irish lifestyle might sound inaccessible, O’Sullivan has enjoyed contorting his niche into a commonality. “The approach had to change a few times, but I think that’s improved the show! All power to comedians who revel in creating a tension in the room, but I don’t want to waste anyone’s time, I want everyone to get something from it!

Roger O'Sullivan.

“You can feel the room split as English people laugh thinking it’s the most absurd thing, and the Irish people know it’s the most normal sentence going, but it’s been fun incorporating that split into the show,” O’Sullivan explains, as he talks about paring back on universal Irish observations.

Digging deeper into the thought behind his choices, O’Sullivan reflects on his various influences citing Dylan Moran, Mitch Hedberg and Fern Brady. “[Some] comics get lost in things like word economy, and try rushing to the punchline, but the comics I love, you want them to tell you the joke, in their way. It’s not the quickest way to say a joke, but it’s the best way.” 

But his final influence is perhaps the most remarkable. He cites Metallica, one of his favourite bands, as having an impact on his comedy. “If you ask a fan, they’d probably say they love either Master of Puppets or The Black Album, and in between those, there was an experimental ...And Justice For All. There’s a reason they don’t play it live. Nobody wants shifting time signatures, they want the hits. I think it’s the same in comedy, a good joke is often better than a smart joke.”

Fekken is also a tale of family, in particular the comic’s relationship with his father and the constant grappling to find common ground with a man from a bygone era. It sees the comic pitting the mentality of a father raised on a farm and through the Troubles, with a son invested in video games and the arts, in a show that O’Sullivan says ended up far more confessional than he intended.

“We set aside three themes of the show, and any material that didn’t tick two of those boxes had to be binned. It forced me to remove some of the safety net I’d built over the years. I prefer that. Instead of it being a compilation of jokes, you can use the time to prime the audience, so they follow you deeper down your rabbit hole. It made me a better writer.” 

And despite the press praise, the review which hit the hardest came from an uncharacteristic phone call with his father. He simply said: “I’ve made you a lot of money.”

---

Roger O'Sullivan: Fekken, Monkey Barrel, Edinburgh 1 Mar, 8pm, £12

@rogerocomedy on Instagram