Indeed, he tells Claire O'Mahony his only worry is that he's getting sick of his own voice

WE'RE riding the lift to a suite in the Park Lane Hilton when a blonde woman turns to Dara O'Briain and tells him how great he is on the show, Mock the Week. "I didn't set that up, " O'Briain quips. Some time later, as O'Briain poses for photographs, a group of people walk past and stop to tell him how much they love his work. Hell, he was even asked if he wanted to appear on Strictly Come Dancing and got the letter about I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here, although he says everyone gets that letter. You then begin to appreciate just how high a profile the comedian has in the UK, although the 34-year-old worries that he's become ubiquitous.

"I'm always around. And I feel it doubly for Ireland because you get the British stuff and you get the Irish stuff, " he says. "The only relief is that all the stuff I do over here, my entire British television career is always broadcast at the point where BBC Northern Ireland opts out of the national broadcaster and shows Armagh v Tyrone instead. So, Mock the Week, no one in Ireland ever sees it because it's on at one o'clock in the morning and it's on at 10 o'clock over here so at least you don't get that. But I just feel like you've heard too much of me in the last while."

He also professes to getting sick of hearing the sound of his own voice during the necessary interviews to promote his various tours and TV programmes. Does he worry about becoming private property? He says not because he refuses to discuss his private life but he does think it's fundamentally unhealthy to talk about yourself constantly.

"An unexamined life is not worth living, but too much examination? You can drive yourself insane, " he says. Nonetheless, doing press is part of the job description, which is why he's here in the Hilton, talking about his DVD, Daire O'Briain, Live at the Theatre Royal.

It's very, very funny despite his nightmarish images of grannies giving it to their grandchildren, who unwrap it and say, "Yeah, I was looking for a Des Bishop actually."

One routine is especially brilliant, where he asks members of the audience what their job is and elaborates hilariously on it. Sometimes he draws a blank (where can you go when someone is a database manager? ) but others just write themselves. There was the food scientist who had led the team that had invented the tropical Solero ice cream.

"I said, 'Shackleton led a team! Wolverine leads a team! You can't say 'I invented an ice cream and I led the team', " O'Briain splutters "And my favourite part was his wife, sitting beside him, with her arms crossed in a very tired 'Oh f**k, here we go with the f**king Solero again, if I hear this story one more timef' sort of way" London has been home for five years now and while being Irish is an irrefutable part of his appeal, O'Briain has never wanted to be pigeon-holed by his nationality.

"The being Irish thing ceased to be a huge novelty about five years ago, around about the time I moved over, and being Muslim is hot now. We're now the middle classes here and we're so subsumed into it. But there is still an issue, " he says.

Straddling the Anglo and the Irish cultures sometimes means his best audiences are to be found in Belfast and Glasgow and he can find certain crowds a little sensitive at times.

"They booed me once when I accidentally said the M25 instead of the M50 . . . this is in Vicar Street . . . in a kind of "Look and you and your fancy London road" way. It's a f**king ring road!"

He lives in Chiswick, West London, an area he describes as being 'a bit mediaville'.

Ant and Dec live there and Deirdre O'Kane has just moved into neighbourhood. He gives a typical example of life there: "I ended up bumping into Sky News's chief correspondent the morning after the election.

He walked past and we kind of did that 'Howya' thing and I went "Well done last night" and he said, "Fancy a pint?" It's very like thatf" A move back to Ireland is unlikely for him anytime soon and his view on London is that you have to make a serious effort to do things you take for granted in Dublin . . . like socialising . . . because of the sheer size and scale of the place, but the rewards of that effort are more than worthwhile. Every theatre show you could want to see, every fine work of art is to be found here. But the main event, according to O'Briain is the chance to work with his comedy heroes. "That's why I'm here. I can understand why people would go happily back and return to their lives in Dublin but I also understand why, in comedy, you really have to come here. It's literally the world centre for it, " he says. "It's just at a higher pitch and the chance to play in a bigger league."

Dara O'Briain's debut DVD 'Live at the Theatre Royal' is out now

DARA'S LONDON HOTSPOTS

Richmond Park, Surrey

"London is the city of parks and, as a random example, Richmond is quite cool because I once got lost driving through it and into a herd of 1200 deer. There are so many deer in Richmond Park, they have to cull 300 of them a year."

Arsenal's Emirates Stadium

"I became a season-ticket holder this year, which sounds like an appallingly media thing to do and it is. As you walk around, you'll see Ainsley Harriot and Clive Anderson and you do feel you've just climbed on, but when I was eight, Liam Brady, Frank Stapleton and Pat Jennings . . . they got me. It's the one thing that will warp the accent because you can't shout 'Who are ya' in an Irish accent in the middle of a load of people saying it in a London one. While I would love to be still going to the hurling, this is a shorter commute! Every two weeks I go and it's lame. I have a hat I only put on outside because I don't want to be walking around in it. I'm not fully committed, the worst kind of middle-class supporter."

The bridges between Embankment and South Bank

"You spend most of your time travelling on London underground and you don't really get a full sense of the sweeping scale of the city. The one thing that does make you catch your breath every time is the river and there are a number of views which are particularly spectacular.

One which you won't get is after Have I Got News For You in the panoramic bar on the 18th floor of the LWT building. You could see from St Paul's all the way across to the houses of Parliament and over to Battersea Park station and it's just stunning."

Any of the pubs in Soho Square

"Soho is a media centre. Many of the production companies are there, there are loads of late-night restaurants and the gay community is based on Compton Street. There are a lot of pubs, the Toucan being an example of a very nice little boozer. London boozers aren't as good as Dublin's because they've a tendency for one-armed bandits, loud music and they have a really open plan, serving two meals for £5.95 and they're horrible. But Soho still has a rake of tiny, very characterful pubs."

The Comedy Store, Haymarket House

"The Comedy Store is where every Irish comedian started. It would have the same cachet for the English . . . where alternative comedy was born. The walls are covered in shots of a young Paul Merton and all these people who played in the early days . . . and people like Alexei Sayle who were around at the start of alternative comedy, 25 years ago. It is the cathedral for all that.

Plus it's the most perfect room for comedy in the world. The bar is at the back, there's no music, food or interruptions. It's just you on top of the audience. It's a place where you'd drop in and meet people because they're doing shows until three in the morning. It's kind of a centre point for all of us."