Returning to London after a triumphant 5* run at this year’s Edinburgh Festival, ‘If I Didn’t Laugh I’d Cry’ tells the story of the life of the late Frank Carson, the much loved Northern Irish comedian. This moving and powerful one-man show is written and performed by Irish actor-comedian Mike McCabe, who is a stand-up himself.

He met Frank in the late seventies on the set of the TV show ‘The Comedians’. Frank was so taken with Mike’s impression of him, he bought him drinks for the rest of the evening and they became close friends.

‘If I Didn’t Laugh I’d Cry’ tells the story of Frank’s rise to fame and it also gives an insight into some of the tragedy that Carson suffered during his life; including when he killed the sniper who shot him in the leg during the war in Palestine; how he survived two heart attacks and how he coped, when in the 1980s, his TV work dried up because he was thought to be too ‘old-fashioned’ for television.

Mike was born in Ct Monaghan just outside the 6 Counties but he considers himself Northern Irish. Mike has been performing stand up for ~50 years and has appeared on tv shows such as Comedians (1988), he won New Faces (1986), on the silver screen in Michael Collins with Liam Neeson & Blue Money with Tim Curry and Billy Connolly, he has stared in the West End performing in The Wier (1995) at The Duke of York Theatre. He’s thrilled to bring The Frank Carson Story: If I Didn’t Laugh I’d Cry back to London.

‘A deeply moving and touching tribute’ Spectrum Radio

‘Mike McCabe is a genuinely funny man’ The Stage

‘McCabe had them rolling in the aisles’ Belfast Telegraph

‘His characterisations are sharp and very funny’ Glasgow Herald”