New York City native Des Bishop has followed an unusual path to success in comedy. His journey has taken him from Queens to Ireland to China, but after moving back home to the U.S., the comedian said definitively that touring the States brought his game to a new level.
Bishop moved to Ireland when he was 14 and didn’t move back to the U.S. until his mid-40s, during the COVID-19 pandemic. After performing stand-up in multiple languages, styles and media, Bishop returned to Manhattan’s esteemed Comedy Cellar for his newly released Hulu special, “Bridge and Tunnel,” which is set to go live on YouTube for free on July 10.
This marks his seventh stand-up comedy special, but only his second in America — and according to him, there is a difference.
“For a boast, yes, I’ve had a lot of specials because I’ve had this entire career in Ireland that Americans don’t really know about. Which is weird because I’m a New Yorker, but I lived in Ireland for a lot of my life. So that’s why it’s all a bit confusing,” Bishop told Fox News Digital.
“I would say the percentage of Americans that saw any of my previous specials before my last two would be in the zero-point-zero-something percent, like, a very low amount,” he said. “And if they had, a lot of those jokes would have just gone over their heads because they’re very Irish.”
Performing for American audiences forced Bishop to tighten up his act and move beyond the longer, more narrative style he developed in Ireland, he said.
“Gigging in America, touring around the United States, just made me a way better comedian,” he said.
While Ireland honed his storytelling chops, American clubs taught him pace and punch.
“I had developed great storytelling skills in Ireland — Ireland is known for really strong storytelling comedians. It’s kind of like the mainstream style there, which is a great skill to have,” Bishop explained.
But telling jokes in iconic locales as well as more rural American venues compelled the comic to refine his delivery.
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“The storytelling and the punchiness mixed together, I think, have created a strong style,” he said. “And that’s not to say that I was lazy in Ireland, but there are just certain things that America challenged me on in a way that has been a huge benefit to me creatively and skill-wise.”
Birthplace is less instrumental in shaping a sense of humor than the topics and tones one is exposed to, said Bishop, pointing to online comedy clips that go viral across borders. His comedic style served him well everywhere he traveled, which he attributed to his eye for spotting commonplace oddities that are typically taken for granted but seem unusual to an outsider.
The globe-trotting entertainer even spent a year learning Mandarin so he could perform a full stand-up show for a native Chinese audience, documented in the short TV series “Des Bishop: Breaking China.” Chinese stand-ups tended to be more deadpan and reserved, which contrasted with his “bouncing off the walls” energy, he said, but he found that audiences came to like his approach.
Invigorated by his success learning a new language and making native speakers laugh, Bishop said his time in China inspired him to bring his act back to the U.S.
Bishop’s journey came full circle when he embraced his roots.
“I finally accepted that, to American audiences, I’m just a guy from Queens. Which, by the way, is what I am, but because I’ve been in Ireland so long, I’ve always been the American in Ireland,” he told Fox News Digital.
“Once I embraced that, my comedy just exploded. So [the title of the special, ‘Bridge and Tunnel,’ is] also a homage to the fact that embracing who I was as a working-class guy from Queens actually helped me to find a bucketload of new material,” Bishop continued.
In the spirit of owning his origin, Bishop’s seventh special leans “unashamedly” into Gen X nostalgia. He acknowledged that portions of the set might not cater to especially young audiences, but said, “I indulge in them because my generation, those that get it, they love it.”
Despite the risk of nostalgia-based comedy being dismissed as a “hack” to win over audiences and occasional ribbing from younger comedians, Bishop said the portions of his show hinging on “the back-in-the-day stuff” are worth it. Besides, the youngsters just can’t relate — yet.
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“I don’t mind that they don’t get nostalgia, because they don’t need nostalgia, because they still have hope,” Bishop said.
“And nostalgia is the spackle that covers the hole where hope used to be,” he added. “So one day you will understand, and you’ll be nostalgic about TikTok or, you know, whatever becomes nostalgic. Like the fact that we used to drive.”
But Bishop has a secret weapon when it comes to reaching audiences of all ages, particularly on social media: his wife, Hannah Berner.
Berner is a bona fide comedian in her own right who just last month released her second stand-up comedy special, “None of My Business,” on Hulu. She hosts a humorous advice podcast called “Berner Phone” with her husband, as well as the immensely popular “Giggly Squad” podcast with her friend, fashion tastemaker and influencer Paige DeSorbo.
Both Bishop and Berner continue to find success in comedy, which means that they both understand the demands of the career, Bishop told Fox News Digital.
“We have very healthy ways of collaborating in that we’re very respectful of each other’s professional space, which is actually one of the benefits of comedians being together,” he said.
“We both understand how much it matters to each other. So we don’t get in each other’s way of pursuing our stuff.”
The partnership comes with the added benefit of a built-in sounding board. For example, Bishop said he sometimes helps his wife refine certain jokes, while she helps him out with social media strategy.
“I’ll come back and tell her story about something that happened on stage, and she’ll be like, ‘You got to clip that.’ She has a keen eye for virality in a way that my Gen X brain just doesn’t,” he said.
“You know, I would throw away a lot of things that have done really well for me online if it wasn’t for Hannah,” Bishop noted.
Bishop and Berner first connected while Berner was on the prominent Bravo reality TV show “Summer House” with DeSorbo, where his budding relationship with his then-girlfriend and now-wife was under initial scrutiny. Bishop told the outlet that it was all worth it to be with Berner.
“We’re free of that world,” he said, adding that it was just another stop on their journeys. “Entertainment careers are long, man… it’s never good to be getting held up on the times where it didn’t go your way.”
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Reflecting on his career thus far, Bishop acknowledged that learning to let go is a lesson that comes with experience.
“I didn’t know that when I was younger. But then you get older, and you’re like, ‘Wow, remember those things that I thought were the end of my universe? It just went away,'” he said.
“Not just comedy — just, like, life. Even think [back to] when you’re 14, you’re outside the principal’s office. You’re like, ‘My life is over!’ I can’t even remember how that felt now,” he laughed. “That’s just life.”
