Des Bishop will play shows in Brisbane, Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney and Perth as part of his Aussie tour.

They say laughter is the best medicine, and nothing could be closer to the truth when it comes to Des Bishop. The Ireland-based New Yorker has joked his way through the most difficult of times and come out the other side smiling, as he told AARON DUNNE.

Back in 2000, after being diagnosed with testicular cancer, Des Bishop went on to make his own personal battle the centrepiece of a hugely successful tour – a banner reading “In Memory Of Lefty” fluttering defiantly in the background throughout.

Nothing could be more difficult than that, you might imagine. And yet here he is, in Australia, back in the full of his own health, bringing a wry smile to the face of tragedy once more.

His latest show hits closer to home in many ways than even the one based on his own ordeals. His father is now suffering from cancer, and in typical Bishop style, he is dealing with his anxiety through comedy.

“The show is largely about dads because of that,” Des explained when we caught up with him at Sydney’s Mercure Hotel.

“To be honest it’s all stuff I’ve wanted to talk about for years, but it’s just now come to a point where it’s happened naturally because of all that’s been going on. I’ve been spending so much time with him and he’s just been so good about it all.”

Like most of Bishop’s material, the theme of this show is something that will hit home with a lot of people. His dad is his hero. It’s something he’d always really known, but perhaps never fully realised aloud until adversity once more came knocking at his door.

In a funny twist of fate, and something clearly not lost of Des, his dad was actually quite nearly a hero for millions of men around the world.

“The show doesn’t really have a title, but if it was to have a title now I’d probably call it My Father Was Nearly James Bond.

“He’s from Midleton originally, but he actually spent a large part of his life in London, where he was a model and an actor. The James Bond bit comes from a story he tells about when he was there.

“He says he was up for the role of Bond along with George Lazenby, and if you saw pictures of him at the time you’d well believe he’d been sent for the role. He definitely auditioned for it.

“So the show is about him and the fact that he’s sick now, and about heroism and how we perceive it. It’s about the fantasies that men in general look towards for their own identities, figures like James Bond.

“It’s almost as if the normal man, the normal father, is not enough of a worthy thing to look up to as an heroic figure.

“James Bond is not real and Miss Moneypenny doesn’t cure cancer. It’s about the real things in life that we need to put up there as heroic. It’s really a story about turning your father into a hero.

“So it is a bit of an emotional show, but it’s funny too. In a lot of ways it’s much easier to be funny about these kinds of things.

“Many people deal with the fact that their parents or someone in their families is ill. It’s quite an intense thing, but a lot of Irish people tend to deal with these things through humour. My father is the perfect example. Short term, he’s doing better than we expected.

“At the very beginning I thought we’d be heading towards the end pretty quickly, but that’s not the case. He’s doing better than we expected at the moment and he’s loving the craic we’re having with the show.”

It’s been a trying few months for Bishop, as one can well imagine. And it’s a long way from his father’s home in Queens that he’ll be spending the next three months. However, a decent stint in Australia offers a sort of relief from it all.

It’s also somewhere that’s been a wonderful breeding ground for comedy, especially now Australia is the destination de jour for young Irish.

“I love Bondi, despite the fact it’s full of Irish,” he laughs. “I joke around with the Irish a lot but actually it’s really great to have them there. It’s different when you’re playing to Irish people abroad too.

“They’re having a unique experience being away from home, and I grew up with Irish people abroad, so it’s almost like Irish people living abroad begin to understand my perception of Irishness that bit more because they’ve been away.

“I think Irish people are quite dismissive before they travel abroad about other people’s perceptions of Ireland. But I think once they get out of the country and travel they really begin to appreciate the power of the Irish community abroad.

“A lot of my show here 18 months ago was pretty much improvised based on my experiences here, and a lot of that stuff became part of my next show – stuff like where I talk about people being sponsored to stay in Australia actually ended up on my next DVD. A lot of that stuff began in Brisbane and Sydney, so Australia has certainly been great to me.”

It’s clear that Bishop has developed a real affection for Australia.

“I was asked by The Sydney Morning Herald what the luck of the Irish was. After spending time on the beaches in Sydney I realised that the luck of the Irish was breaking the law in the 1800s and being sentenced to a life of penal servitude in a country infinitely nicer than the one they were sent from in the first place!”

For a full list of Des’s tour dates click here.