He attended half a dozen different schools as the family moved from one south London rented flat to another. ‘We never had any money. My father was a compulsive gambler who worked in a betting shop – not the ideal combination. He ended up in prison for stealing money to gamble with. Shortly afterwards he died of leukaemia.’
Condell ‘fell into comedy’ in the 1980s, after a series of jobs, including six years logging in Canada. ‘In those days some of the nights were wild, particularly at the old Tunnel Club, next to the Blackwall Tunnel, where the audience was a nightmare. I had bottles and glasses thrown at me, and one guy even jumped on stage with a pair of shears and tried to cut the mic lead.’ He performed in the trailblazing Cutting Edge team at the Comedy Store. He regularly notched up 200 to 300 gigs a year around Britain. By the mid-’90s he’d had enough of the travelling and late nights. So he started writing for other people. He turned out a couple of plays. He still did occasional live gigs. ‘But this is the first time I’ve set out to write a show in order to say something, rather than just as a vehicle for stand-up.’
Feature continues
Condell’s not aiming to cause offence. After he’d tried out an early version of the show back in Febrary, a woman came up to tell him she’d enjoyed it. ‘But she thought I’d been unnecessarily coarse. There is a certain amount of bad language. There’s also group sex with a donkey – I might as well own up to this now. But I assured her the show was a lot less coarse than I’d have liked it to be, given the subject matter. So in that sense you could say I’m making an effort not to offend.’
That’s not all. ‘Everyone who comes to “Faith Hope and Sanity” should know in advance exactly what to expect,’ he argues. ‘Especially if they check my website first. So, if anyone’s offended, it’s because they want to be offended, and people like that don’t deserve the time of day.’
It needs saying that Condell respects some forms of belief. ‘I admire anyone who’s genuinely trying to achieve spiritual enlightenment and live a peaceful life. But religious dogma is a barrier to that. The last thing a dogmatist wants is for anyone to be enlightened, any more than a pharmaceutical company wants anybody cured.’ Or, as Condell puts it on his website: ‘Religion disapproves of original thought the way Dracula does sunlight.’
Is he fearful that fundamentalists of one kind or another could take action against the show? ‘The fact that you need to ask the question demonstrates what a sick society we live in. There’s always a risk, I suppose. But I’m not as afraid of fundamentalists as they are of free thought.’ He’s hoping for a positive reaction. ‘I want people to feel that things are being said that are long overdue, and to leave at the end with a smile on their face and a light heart.’
‘Faith Hope and Sanity’ is at the Etcetera Theatre until Sunday.
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28 comments
Anonymous, please give an example of something Pat says which is wrong. He is just so right! You feel offended because you have been brainwashed into not thinking for yourself, but believe in midevel stories about people (Muhammad etc) which probably never existed anyway. Religion is stupidity and deserves no respect what so ever.
To danny ref above message...
Clearly English is not your first language, if it were, perhaps you wouldn't have made yourself look such a bloody pillock.
Ever the optomist :)
Very clever man, who speaks the way i feel about all religion; A doctrine for weak, feeble minded sheep who are afraid of death and who will kill as many innocent people as possible trying to prove to us that there is a god.
Pat's a wonder, the article should have been longer. It might have been had you taken out the fucking annoying averts!
Pat's a wonder, the article should have been longer. I might have been had you taken out the fucking annoying averts!
Anonymous it is easy to claim that somebody is lying but if you don't back your accusation with examples then your claim is as empty as the claims made by your religion. Peace, especially to those who shout liar without justification.
Anonymous, Pat does not come across as an angry man to me, as for old, I will be corrected but I believe Pat is in his mid fifties if you think that's old I have to assume you are very young and as such your youth reflects your experience...or lack of.
How you can accuse him of telling lies is quite incredible. To disagree with him is one thing but to accuse him of being a liar is ridiculus and says more about you than anything else. Why not post some information to back up your accusation?
I wont hold my breath....
Remember: attack Islam, not Muslims. The latter can't help it if they were born into an ideology and have it pushed on them by their parents.
The religion is fair game and should be awarded the same respect we give to Nazism.
Dear Pat. Please never stop doing what you do. Please. You do it so well, and it is so necessary. Thank you very much.
Pat, never stop doing what you do best...exposing religious bigots. Your a star.
Excellent work Pat! Islam is a politically cancerous ideology that
has a parasitical nature.Pat is a breath of fresh air in the sick room of political correctness.
The notion, "we're all going to die" is more than a little disconcerting, so naturally there's a predisposition to accept some comforting illusion. And religions are tripping over themselves to fill that need. Specifically, going to Heaven (assuming you've spent half your life on your knees staring at the ceiling) or some kind of complicated reincarnation. Sorry to break it to you so brutally mug-punters, but these are myths for the weak-minded that can’t handle mortality. When you draw your last breath, it's "Game Over". Get used to it. Face it, who but a gullible, two-dimensional rube would swallow that pernicious religious claptrap for one second? Answered my own question methinks. Only by rejecting all religious do you proclaim yourself a free-thinker.
Pat Condell is spot on. Religion is the ultimate form of wishful thinking. It also is the ultimate tool for keeping people mentally enslaved. Pat humorously expresses what a lot of people are thinking but have kept to themselves for fear of religious bullying. Keep it up!
Pat for Prime Minister
in conclusion i think pat is an old angry man with a serious lack of knowledge who is probably suffering from chronic depression because quite clearly if anyone actually looks in to his aquisation its all a bunch of lies. he is an sad man with a dictionary picking out every bad word out of it and using it to describe well established religions. to be honest i think he is the one who is suffering from a mental illness. please do your research and make sure they are from reliable resources. i just cannot believe a mature man of pats age can accuse religions of being as he described with such a small knowledge base, i mean come on he the guy has not got a clue and i cant believe people are actually agreeing with him.