Irish comic Stevo Timothy's character of Farmer Michael has become a global internet phenomenon, reaching audiences around the world with his clumsy (and often offensive) takes on everything from feminism to football, and he's brining his live show to America for St. Patrick's Day.

But comedy and tragedy are never too far apart, and Stevo's backstory is one of the most intriguing you will ever come across - he crashed his motorbike while drunk, killing a friend and sustaining injuries that left him in a wheelchair, and despite his bombastic characterisation of Michael, anxiety is never too far away.

On this week's Global Gael he talks about the practicalities of touring in a wheelchair, what the audiences can expect, and how he deals with a life that can be tremendous and terrifying in equal measure.

https://twitter.com/SirStevoTimothy/status/1741501719102574819

Support this show on patreon.com/ourmaninstockholm

On this week's episode, Doreen Burke form the Irish embassy in Stockholm talks to me about how to go about getting an Irish passport abroad, whether you're renewing your own, getting one for a child born outside of Ireland, or you find yourself in an emergency situation.

You can apply for your Irish passport here: https://www.ireland.ie/en/dfa/passports/passport-online/

Please support this podcast by going to patreon.com/ourmaninstockholm and pledging €5 to help me to produce these podcasts every week.

Irish comedian Cormac Moore is coming to visit Stockholm in mid-February, and he joined me this week to talk about life as the man behind the mic, what it takes to get up there and make people laugh, and how being convenient is almost as important for your stand-up career as being funny ...
Get your tickets for Cormac's show here: www.thelaughhouse.se/event/feb-17th…tting%20comedy.

A busy one this week packed with drama and music!

I paid a visit to the initial readings for English-language theatre group Spuds & Sill's upcoming production of "Canaries" which will take place in the spring, and later in the week I caught up with Ged Graham, the writer and performer behind the "Seven Drunken Nights" stage show which tells the story of the Dubliners and is set for four dates in Sweden in early February.

The end of the week was spent with the wonderfully talented Brian O'Connor, who has a new album in the works - we met in the cellar of the Liffey in Gamla Stan to talk timing, life on the road, and how the compulsion to create is what keeps us all going!

Get your tickets for Seven Drunken Nights here: https://sevendrunkennights.com/tickets/

Corkman Dr. Mark O'Sullivan is causing serious ripples in the sporting world from his position as associate professor of football at Norway's School Of Sports Science in Oslo, ripping up the coaching manuals as he tries to answer the question - how do we coach the next generation of athletes so they can get the most out of sport?

Support the podcast: www.patreon.com/ourmaninstockholm

You can follow Mark on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/markstkhlm

Dubliner Alan Dalton has been a guest on the show before to talk all things birding and nature, and he joins us again to talk about his new podcast "Wild Bird Acoustics".

An accomplished artist, photographer and bird-watcher, Alan puts an incredible amount of time into recording birds as they migrate around Sweden, and his new podcast uses those sounds as a backdrop to some fascinating wildlife conversations.

A love of rugby has brought Dubliner Gar Moss from Raheny to coaching Albania in their first official international against Kosovo last weekend - via Beijing and Dubai and a few more places in between! The nation's first head coach for their international team joined me to talk about the growth of the game and how, despite his boys being on the wrong end of a 34-12 defeat, the future is bright for growing the game internationally.

We've all heard about the great things happening outside of the big cities, but what's it actually like to live in the colder, more northerly parts of Sweden? Journalist Paul Connolly and his partner abandoned the high-flying media life in London and moved to Skellefteå, and they haven't looked back since - hear their story on this week's podcast!

Tadhg HIckey's searing memoir "A Portrait Of The Piss-Artist As A Young Man" won the Global Gael Bok Of The Year award for 2023 and if you've read it, you'll know why - it's a warts-and-all account of how he tried to balance tremendous success as a writer and actor with family struggles and the bottomless despair of alcohol addiction.

In a scenario that many in the Irish diaspora will recognise, Tadhg's abuse of alcohol really spiralled out of control when he was performing at the Edinburgh Festival and some of his darkest days as a drinker were spent in London, but luckily he entered recovery and has survived to tell the tale.

He came on the show to talk about the mechanics of writing a book, balancing low self-esteem with an enormous ego, and how telling the truth is the only way to real recovery.

Support the podcast: patreon.com/ourmaninstockholm

For the first podcast of 2024 I'm joined by Kalle Ryan to talk about celebrating a Swedish-Irish Christmas in Dublin, creativity and how he came to quit the booze a few years back, instantly making Dry January a walk in the park every year!

You can find Kalle at www.kalleryan.com, where he says:

All my services are on there, and I have several blog posts about creativity for anyone interested, here's a handful: