Dara Ó Briain | Full Q&A | Oxford Union

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Dara Ó Briain is a comedian known for his popular stand up routines and role as host on several TV programmes, including Mock the Week. He also frequently appears as a panellist on QI. He writes books for both adults and children, and his first children's book Beyond the Sky was nominated for a Blue Peter Book of the Year Award.
ABOUT THE OXFORD UNION SOCIETY: The Oxford Union is the world's most prestigious debating society, with an unparalleled reputation for bringing international guests and speakers to Oxford. Since 1823, the Union has been promoting debate and discussion not just in Oxford University, but across the globe.

[@aquachimp1]

I enjoy his stuff immensely and am always greatly impressed by how he rambles on away from whatever point you'd think he was about to make and then, eventually, manages to find his way back to complete it. I notice I do the same thing, so maybe it's an Irish thing, except, I nearly always forget where I had gone from. Maybe it's just that I'm just much older than him.

[@harryturner8701]

I love this man and his mind so much

[@tartanguy8714]

Really enjoyed this one funny, informative and some lessons along the way brilliant!!

[@ShannonJacobs0]

My General Theory of Relatively Funny Stuff is that we need to laugh to learn. That's the foundation of such things as why children are so easily amused and why slapstick is funny. Children are ALWAYS learning and we learn how not to be injured by watching the slapstick accidents of the Three Stooges. At deeper levels, like his political comedy, the jokes depend on deep understanding of the political realities...

[@tkfaf15]

There is some really great post college advice in here and 10 minutes in I sent the link to my son with instructions to watch immediately.

[@dirkvannieuwenhove]

I love Dara’s sense for comedy. He is funny as heck

[@siobhanalexandra32]

Such a wonderful man and one of the best comedians ever😊 so cool!

[@jamesburke2094]

58:00 it's Jonny Sessions

[@Walperion_Paintings]

Yes! I worked it out to be John Sessions as well. Which is surprising, but understandable, considering that I remember him being kinda too clever in that old QI episode. Like no human being has a reason to be THAT knowledgeable in such different unrelated topics. Now I'll rush to re-watch it with new eyes!

[@defaultyorker6096]

Ah, thanks. Watched this a few days ago and I was wondering who it was.

[@highdownmartin]

I was thinking it was him, thanks for confirming. Great in Stella street but a total nobhead thinking that’d be a smart idea.

[@sroycze9284]

I was thinking either him or rory.Sean's putdown of rory was epic.

[@richin2123]

You just saved me from getting out my Q I DVDs and cross-referencing Dara O Briain / Jennifer Saunders! But I'm still going to have to re-watch the episode again, and closely too.

[@kindnessfirst9670]

One of the funniest comic there is and probably the very smartest. No wonder his wife is a London surgeon.

[@BeowulfNorther]

odd, wonder whatever happened to the mail order thai wife with the ping pong trick?

[@lautoka63]

What he has to say is worth hanging in there until you ear tunes in to the speed and accent. What he has to say about life is well worth listening to (I'm old, but I remember being young).

[@dl4350]

john sessions seemingly was the one checked the answers 😶

[@decodolly1535]

I'm more interested to know who actually tore up his answer sheet because I'm pretty certain Jennifer Saunders has never been on QI.

[@rosawatters]

​@decodolly1535 I'm pretty sure it would actually have been Emma Thompson, in the Series F: Film episode, whose first words to Sessions were "Are you going to be like this all night?"

[@kschepelern]

stumbled upon this for doing the dishes now. yes please

[@shughy1]

I'd like to see him have a go at acting, he's got a great face full of character

[@joshuataylor3550]

You didn't see him in despicable me?!

[@mikedon5205]

Bond character

[@samseal8611]

He'd make a great Uncle Fester.

[@Spring2411]

@@joshuataylor3550 :) :)

[@jep1912]

I'd like to see him have a go at comedy.

[@irishmusico]

The Oxford Union is basically the first podcast.

[@Nataloff]

At last! I've been waiting for Dara.

[@MichaelKingsfordGray]

While still waiting for a real name.

[@bigpanda307]

dam this guy talks fast, i wonder how many words he averages a minute!

[@deborahbarron670]

I want to see a debate between Dara and Ben Shapiro

[@helenswan705]

"I'm relaxed" he babbles!

[@nigelmurphy6761]

its an irish things dude. we do tend to talk very fast

[@aquachimp1]

@@nigelmurphy6761 Until we move abroad and then have to slow riiiiiiiiiiight dooooooooowwwwwnnnn

[@TheUnknownlogin]

He actually talks normal speed (see 20min onwards), but when he's nervous, he fills a lot of the sentences with "Ahh" and stutters or repeats words. The accent then makes it all noise, until you get use to the accent and filter out the "noise". It's just his brain is trying to slow down so his mouth can keep up. Awesome guy, great story teller, funnier than Jimmy Carr and more intellegent than I.

[@suchdevelopments]

Dara is brilliant and funny.🤣😂😅

[@pmathews109]

I’m from Ireland and I think he’s great and very bright, but I thought it was difficult to understand him when he started to speak quickly, I’m not sure how an English audience coped with that?

[@jingxie8711]

You are a racist

[@lonestar6709]

I could follow him. He quick... but clear.

[@highdownmartin]

I tuned into it. I could never understand people saying they couldn’t understand what conelly was saying back in the seventies. I could always understand it all.

[@ryanharriss7950]

It's part of his character, he'd sound odd if he spoke slower. Going to see his show next month, can't wait 😃

[@tkfaf15]

I'm from the US but I love watching British TV/Comedy/radio so it probably helps a lot that I've heard Dara a lot before. I hardly notice his accent except on certain words but when he starts talking fast, it does take my brain a minute or two to get up to his speed. I could understand him without a problem though.

[@David-ve5iq]

Dara O'Briain looks basically beautiful in the thumbnail.

[@ihateeverythingsucks7003]

Yes he is beautiful

[@mytube001]

He looks like a younger and scaled-up Gyles Brandreth in that picture.

[@ellie-tk4jy]

@ihateeverythingsucks7003 no he is not beautiful. Why is the bar so low for men and so high for women? The female equivalent of him would not be called beautiful. Quite the opposite.

[@andrewwilliams9401]

Any chance of adding subtitles? Or if there is a way to see subtitles please tell me.

[@LtLukoziuz]

@Alle Warten Auf Das Licht Reasons why EVERYTHING should have subtitles: - English is your second+ language, and you've not had lots of speaking/listening experience - You are bad of hearing (or completely deaf) and need help - Speaker is speaking in accent you're not used listening to (as you can see from some comments around, some folk do find Dara's talk style too fast) - You are more comfortable comprehending thoughts through text than voice - And there are services that can do subtitles for you for a very small fee Reasons why there shouldn't be subtitles: - You're an ass to others

[@pleappleappleap]

I think the one comedian who is famous for not turning the comedy off off-stage was Robin Williams. May he rest in peace.

[@TheGava4]

One question. Are the interviewers students themselves? Or teachers? Or journalists brought in?

[@retnavybrat]

I've always been under the impression that they were students.

[@samkurlekar]

They are students

[@raybeeze5522]

great advice about university beyond the usually mindless study hard pap. nice.

[@Nygaard2]

Click bait! I thought this was an interview with the Mega bus man!

[@tamas5931]

We all know why we are here: where does he say that John Sessions looked up the answers to questions on QI?

[@WilliamSmith-mx6ze]

About 57:00 onwards.

[@13thAMG]

Brilliant. I've been a huge fan for a while. That interviewer girl was a bit of a flat dull personality. But great session.

[@trax0726]

8:06 very true

[@The123rasputin]

Asking do you have a comedy soc at Oxford.

[@MrJellybeen]

Vicar Street Alumni

[@haniyamalik489]

I remember, Kane went there..I saw his QNA..looking such handsome,cute

[@AoyagiAichou]

Honestly, has the sound editor never heard of deesser?

[@shaunohagan1491]

That's a funny looking O you have there

[@SpiritOfMontgomery]

Disappointed he didn’t start with “Hello, I’m Dara O’Brien!”

[@AnnaAnna-uc2ff]

sigh

[@MuchWhittering]

Anyone with more time than me wanna try and work out who the rogue QI guest is?

[@annavale3971]

I actually came here from a comment in a QI XL episode (Season J - Jumble) that said it was John Sessions.

[@mike-williams]

@@annavale3971 That was my guess, as the only now-deceased person who appeared with Dara.

[@patobrien6364]

bhí ar fad nirbhíseach anseo créatiúr bocht 😉😘

[@emmanuelboakye1124]

🤣🤣

[@itzuangelshh9083]

✏️

[@brucewayne5488]

Megabus did well out of his big bald head

[@ilricettario]

Like a cat on acid that day then?

[@The123rasputin]

Goes back to the point about the OU having been a place of elite education that's turned into one of celebrity tittilation. Someone grown up needs to take a grip of that place.

[@MrEddiyOwen]

'tell me you didn't go to oxford, without telling me you didn't go to oxford'

[@PianoKwanMan]

The OU is surprisingly a place where many people who haven't had a chance to go to education to get education, or want to do it at a more leisurely pace, around work, childcare, or another degree. You're right, we totally should be tearing down the largest single insitution university in the UK in terms of students, and arguably the widest reach of students, extending around the world

[@The123rasputin]

I meant specifically the Union. When I was at Oxford in the 80s, the Union was a place you'd go to as part of your working day; now it's a place of entertainment for students.

[@BeyondOrdinary]

@@The123rasputin even in the 1990's when my dad was at Oxford they had guest celebrities at the Union. I know because some of them were televised. Dad, mentioned he was in the audience and you could just make him out if you knew where to look. I doubt it was much different in the 80's but probably not filmed as often. You just sound like an old and pretentious person. (You're probably about my age, Dad was in his 70s when he went to Oxford).

[@jorgehurford1742]

Unfortunate that the interviewer either had no sense of humour, or couldn't keep uo with the speed of Dara's mind.

[@simonwhitlock9189]

I would have enjoyed this so much more if he would please slow down and enunciate, sorry but I gave up after about fifteen minutes as it was just to hard to listen too.

[@jamesburke2094]

what he talks about at 9:00 This is all about the protectionism of the inferior (not that oxbridgers are particularly superior, esp in the peripheral subjects where disproportionate quantities of graduates become burdens to their employers) which, in its pretentious form, really accelerated after 1992 when more failing academics were being invited to go on to Higher ed despite their evident lower level failures. I mention pretentious form, due to the fact that graduates have always gone in to the world of work and been at the bottom, but it was more honest, whereas now you have more senior graduates who genuinely know very little and/or can do very little independently and/or conceive anything originally. So, their degree means they go around pretending to be at a certain level whereas what society needed them to do was to go learn the basics and/or learn a valuable skill/trade, hence the long series of publicized workplace failures such as Wirecard, Carillion, Patisserie Valerie, health dept IT screw ups etc etc. This motive of protectionism also led to increasing standard school leaving age. It meant that 1) staff at schools could be unnecessarily grown and 2) inept older citizens could be in positions unchallenged and Tony Blair & Major saw this as an opportunity to gain the votes of the beneficiaries of 1 & 2. So, all of the above is a political game. The other thing I would mention, is if there are glaring dysfunctionalities in your area of expertise, and you have solutions, don't hesitate to produce a solution and then record and publicize it. In my field of financial reporting, it's rife with dysfunctionality due to inappropriate participation of evident historic failures (today it's all about having the correct identity and definitely having bought in to the correct economic policies), and have personally come up with solutions which identified huge inefficiencies which were costing companies mountains of cash, as well as resolving misinformation about financial performance, and provided entirely new information. There's nothing to stop anyone doing this independently and then sharing it online, though I'll warn you not to get your hopes up regarding adoption, as people will forgive you for being wrong, but never for being right.

[@zphytrqw10obgokneq74]

Is Dara nervous or on Coke?

[@i-am-batman8538]

Neither

[@dray3000]

does tv to millions a week wouldnt say hes nervous just passion

[@DerRoterKaiser]

If it was, would it be out of place in that place?

[@SuperDoNotWant]

Neither he's always like this, if you've watched his live performances.

[@elethomiel]

I think he's probably been starved for live audiences recently, so he's just running with it. He's always a bit manic but I think he's gone up to 11 in this.

[@jamestyrrell4632]

Too hyper for me left after a minute or so.

[@susannamarker2582]

He might have academic credentials, but should Oxford not be inviting people to engage in academic debate, instead of listening to celebrities recount their life stories ?

[@PianoKwanMan]

That's what the debate is for. But to do that multiple times per week, you would run out of guests very quickly. This is just a different part of the society.

[@WilliamSmith-mx6ze]

The Union has a set-piece debate once a week, but it has celebrities do these Q&As at different times in the week.

[@user-xo4rx8ov5o]

Oxford lost it's Credo long ago as did academia

[@blindwatchmaker2345]

10 mins in and he hasnt really answered a single question yet...talks alot, not answeringtho

[@thedolphin5428]

9:00 - 10:00 Dara puts his finger on why millennials think they deserve promotions at work from day 1. Lol. The real world IS NOT LIKE tertiary education ... no matter how smart (you think) you are.

[@PianoKwanMan]

It's been the same for every generation before and will be the same for every generation after.

[@The123rasputin]

Coked up?

[@joshuataylor3550]

I hope not.

[@TheGava4]

No…he’s ALWAYS like this.

[@matthewrowe9903]

I'm assuming the lack of any blowback that Dara was very on message for the snowflakes ?quoting a comedy genius " how very ordinary "

[@PrimeMatt]

Good until he mentioned being Pro poison 😔

[@laeequenadvi4746]

EXPANDING UNIVERSE.MENTIONED IN HOLY QUR'AN 1500 YEARS AGO ALMIGHTY ALLAH THE ORIGINATOR TO THE UNIVERSE AND CREATOR OF THE MANKIND Who can claim 1350 years ago that the universe is expending? والسماء بنينها بايد و انا لموسعون o " And the heaven We built it with power, and indeed, We are the expander " (And We it is Who make the vast extent, thereof ) (Qur'an, 51:47) Until 1931, physicist Albert Einstein believed that the universe was static. An urban legend attributes this change of perspective to when American astronomer Edwin Hubble showed Einstein his observations of redshift in the light emitted by far away nebulae - today known as galaxies. After Hubble discovered that the universe was expanding, Einstein called the cosmological constant his "greatest blunder." At around the same time, larger telescopes were being built that were able to accurately measure the spectra, or the intensity of light as a function of wavelength, of faint objects. Almighty Allah is the Creator of the whole universe.He says: Should He not know what He created? And He is the Subtile, the Aware. The knowledge of scientists is very limited and insufficient to understand the universe! ! Recently NASA launched JWST. This telescope will see the beginning of the universe and how it evolved. Today the scientists accepted that they know very little about the universe. DR.MOHAMMAD LAEEQUE NADVI Ph.D. (Arabic Lit.) M.A. Arabic Lit. Director Amena Institute of Islamic Studies & Analysis A Global & Universal Research Institute Donate to promote this Institute SBI A/C30029616117 Kolkata,Park Circus Branch [e-mail] Thanks

[@_Pike]

My penis hurts

[@alistairpostle9092]

I wish he spoke at half the speed I cannot follow this babble. Obviously not wanting us to undertand him must be drivel.

[@Spamfactor]

Look at it as an opportunity to improve your English comprehension skills, particularly if English isn’t your first language or you often struggle to understand people who speak in an accent you’re not used to.

[@redkola3756]

It's just the way he talks you don't need to be rude about it. Don't judge what he's said until you've actually heard what he has to say. It's not his fault you can't be bothered trying to understand what he's saying. I thought that his interview offers a lot of useful information paired with that fantastic energy and enthusiasm that he usually preforms with.

[@EmyrDerfel]

KZbin allows you to change the playback speed.

[@DoctorMeatDic]

I remember watching this guy, with Ed Byrne and others back in Temple Bar in 1996. They were, and are now, desperately unfunny. I am amazed they have actual careers now. Among them were true comedians: Ardal O'Hanlon and Dylan Moran. These guys always stole the show back then. The English will literally laugh at anything.

[@wynty200]

If you don’t think O’Briain is funny, I have absolutely no idea how you can think Ardal O’Hanlon is funny. His standup is bog standard, he’s much better as a comic actor. Dylan Moran is in another league to all of them, but who cares?

[@joshuataylor3550]

You are a sad act mate, he's loved by millions.

[@DoctorMeatDic]

@@joshuataylor3550 Since when has that been a measure of talent?

[@KitagumaIgen]

Do you have a link to a funny set by Ardal?

[@DoctorMeatDic]

@@KitagumaIgen Any before he became famous

[@I-am-not-a-number]

He ain't funny.

[@timangus]

He's quite funny.

[@hawsrulebegin7768]

He’s occasionally funny.

[@derekmulready1523]

Everyone is entitled to have an Opinion. But Dara is Funny. Hilariously So . 🇮🇪🇪🇺👀

[@joshuataylor3550]

He's probably funnier than you.

[@hawsrulebegin7768]

@@joshuataylor3550 I don’t know Honey badger but I’m guessing they don’t work as a professional comedian. Dara does. See where I’m going with this?

[@ejiroonovughe8014]

Funny how you are yet to upload Anthony Joshua's visit to Oxford Union.Bet you would have done so if he still had the bets.Fake people everywhere

[@i-am-batman8538]

? Joshua only came this week, Dara is part of the backlog of events from last term… guess you don’t know how a schedule works

[@ejiroonovughe8014]

@@i-am-batman8538 Joshua was there last week actually,about eight days ago..

[@i-am-batman8538]

@@ejiroonovughe8014 ooh wow I’m one day out, makes a massive difference in terms of how ‘fake’ the Union are by daring to upload last term’s events first. I was actually there, just not so good at keeping track of what day it is. Now please again why your comment isn’t complete nonsense?

[@ejiroonovughe8014]

@@i-am-batman8538 I already told u what I needed to..Bye..And please do try and learn how to keep record of days it's relevant as much as it's important..Tons of people want to watch n listen to him but cos ur busy uploading last term's videos,they can't,all cos you don't know how to keep record of days(as said by you)..