The last few years have been something of a whirlwind for Deirdre O’Kane. She recently fronted her own talk show – Deirdre O’Kane Talks Funny – in the primetime Saturday night slot on RTÉ One and debuted a brand new standup comedy series, The Deirdre O’Kane Show, with Sky Comedy. Deirdre also appeared as a judge alongside Boy George, Aston Merrygold and Vogue Williams on the new Fox-developed talent show, The Big Deal, for Virgin Media Television.
A co-founder of Comic Relief in Ireland, Deirdre presented the critically acclaimed RTÉ Does Comic Relief which raised more than 6 million euros to help those most in need as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and reached in excess of 1.4 million viewers across Ireland. In recent years she has hosted the prestigious IFTA Film & Drama Awards (for both RTÉ and Virgin Media), and reached the finals of the national broadcaster’s top-rated entertainment show, Dancing with the Stars. Deirdre is also known as the voice of smash-hit Gogglebox (Virgin Media) which returned for a seventh season in late 2021.
One of Ireland’s favourite comedians, Deirdre never strays too far from her live stand-up roots; her new show, Demented, a box-fresh hour of side splitting laughs, is touring Ireland and the UK in 2022.
A six-time Irish Film and Television Awards (IFTA) nominee, Deirdre was awarded Best Lead Actress (Film) 2015 for her role as Christina Noble opposite Liam Cunningham, Sarah Greene and Brendan Coyle in Stephen Bradley’s feature Noble. Released in September 2014, Noble won Jury and Audience awards at the Boston Film Festival, Santa Barbara International Film Festival, Newport Beach Festival, Nashville and Dallas Festivals.
Other feature film credits include the BAFTA winning Festival for Channel 4, Intermission directed by John Crowley for Parallel Fims, Killing Bono directed by Nick Hamm for Cinema Three and Dollhouse, directed by Kirsten Sheridan for Factory Films.
An accomplished television actor, Deirdre starred alongside Debi Mazar and Hillary Duff in Darren Starr’s hit sitcom Younger (TV Land, US) which aired in September 2017. Other TV credits include Paths to Freedom (RTÉ) in which she played Brendan Coyle’s long-suffering wife Helen, The Clinic, Fergus’s Wedding, The Fitz, and Bittersweet. She appeared in the leading role of Debra Moone in three series of Moone Boy (Sky) opposite Peter McDonald and Chris O’Dowd, garnering Deirdre her fifth IFTA nomination in 2014.
Theatre credits include Mary in Juno and the Paycock (The Abbey), Miss Funny in At the Black Pig’s Dyke (Druid Theatre) Daphne in Present Laughter (Gate Theatre), Jean in two sold-out runs of Dandelions at the Gaiety Theatre for Landmark Productions, and her acclaimed performance in the one woman show My Brilliant Divorce (Druid).
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