Dara Ó Briain (born 4 February 1972) is an Irish comedian and television presenter in the United Kingdom and Ireland. He was announced as one of the co-presenters of Series 8 of Robot Wars on 3 February 2016, alongside fellow Irish presenter Angela Scanlon, and reprised the role in Series 9 and 10.
Robot Wars[]
Dara Ó Briain in a promotional shot with Matilda and Sir Killalot
Dara's role on Robot Wars is equal to that of co-presenter Angela Scanlon, in that he reprises the roles Craig Charles performed in the presenter's box, and also fills the role of a pit reporter, talking to teams in the pits. However, in Series 8, Ó Briain did have two roles exclusive to him as a presenter, in that he would interview one Judge per episode about the advancement of technology, and he would also open the show from within the arena. These roles would become shared with Scanlon in Series 9-10.
Dara's appointment to the role was met with a mixed reaction from fans, though the detractors were mostly disappointed that Craig Charles would not be returning as host. Others praised him as a good choice due to him having interest in science and technology. On the day of the announcement he spoke of his new role on his Twitter account, speaking of "happy memories" of Craig Charles' time on the show.
Dara Ó Briain's TR2 launches Behemoth
In Episode 1 of Robot Wars: Battle of the Stars, Dara Ó Briain took to the controls of TR2 to wage an exhibition match against Behemoth, driven by Angela Scanlon. TR2 dominated the bout, repeatedly flipping Behemoth, much to Dara Ó Briain's enjoyment. Towards the end of the bout, he allowed Scanlon to flip TR2, but he retaliated, and fought until cease was called. No winner was officially declared, although in a contest edited out of the televised broadcast, the battle continued for another minute after cease, where Behemoth drove into the pit[1], effectively awarding the win to Dara Ó Briain.
- "Oh I love it, I want to do it again and again and again and again!"
- — Dara Ó Briain
Judge Interviews[]
In each Heat of Series 8, Ó Briain would interview one of the three Judges to discuss recent developments in the world of robotics, usually in between the Head to Head battles:
- Heat A: Ó Briain and Professor Noel Sharkey discussed the updates made to competitor robots during Robot Wars’ hiatus, including the advent of improved weapon motors, HARDOX armour and lithium polymer (LiPo) batteries. Sharkey then shared his opinions on drink-serving drones from a bar in Singapore, and an exoskeleton designed to replace wheelchairs and enhance one’s upper body strength.
- Heat B: Professor Sethu Vijayakumar discussed his collaboration with NASA on Valkyrie, a sophisticated humanoid designed to perform unmanned missions to Mars. Vijayakumar predicted that robots like Valkyrie would help reduce the cost of space missions to a fraction of those for manned missions, as a result of not requiring oxygen, food or water and being free of the health and safety constraints placed on human astronauts.
- Heat C: Dr Lucy Rogers demonstrated the workings of animatronics to Ó Briain, with the help of a miniature animatronic dinosaur based on those used at a theme park in the Isle of Wight.
- Heat D: Rogers appeared again to discuss with Ó Briain about the supportiveness of the roboteering community, as well as sharing her opinions on online communities, internet communication devices and affordable electronics such as the Raspberry Pi computer.
- Heat E: Vijayakumar returned to explain the concept of ‘shared autonomy’, which enables machines to possess limited control over their functions. He then demonstrated the concept with a prosthetic robot arm attached to Ó Briain’s own arm, which grabbed hold of a bottle of water without crushing it and allowed Ó Briain to drink from it without leaving any spillages.
In Series 9-10, Ó Briain only conducted some of the interviews, with Angela Scanlon conducting the others held throughout each of the series. Dara Ó Briain talked to the Judges on these occasions:
- Series 9, Heat A: Ó Briain and Vijayakumar further discussed shared autonomy, demonstrating a robot arm programmed to play Connect 4, while the arm itself proceeded to win the game against Angela Scanlon.
- Series 9, Heat B: Ó Briain talked to Sharkey about the developments of drones in the workforce, specifically Amazon's new delivery service.
- Series 9, Heat E: Ó Briain again discussed the NASA Valkyrie project with Vijayakumar, this time with specific focus on the machine's laser-based localisation system.
- World Series, Episode 1: Ó Briain and Sharkey discussed combat robots in lower weight categories - antweights, beetleweights and featherweights. They were accompanied by Alex Shakespeare, whose antweight Space-Y flipped a pen off the workbench before throwing itself over numerous times and lifting the beetleweight robot. Sharkey recommended potential roboteers to start in the antweight category before working up through the other weight categories.
- World Series, Episode 2: Ó Briain discussed with Vijayakumar the concept and applications of 'wearable' robots, such as exoskeletons and prosthetic limbs. Vijayakumar also explained the process of symbiosis between the human nervous system and the robots being discussed, as well as potential benefits and issues concerning the wider use of 'wearable' robots.
Outside Robot Wars[]
Dara Ó Briain (left) in a promotional image for Echo Island.
Dara Ó Briain's career began as a presented for children's television network RTÉ in the 1980s, where he also began performing stand-up comedy. For three years, he presented Echo Island on RTÉ Network 2, who was fluent in both English and Irish. He would later appear as a team captain on Don't Feed the Gondolas and hosted the gameshow It's a Family Affair.
In the early 2000s, Ó Briain began to perform comedy internationally, juggling this with presenting roles on talk shows such as Buried Alive and The Panel. He would make his first appearance on the news quiz Have I Got News for You in 2003, making subsequent guest host appearances in years that followed. He was nominated in two Live Comedy categories at the 2003 Chortle Comedy Awards, falling short in the Best Compère category but winning the Best Headline Act. Ó Briain picked up his second Best Headline Act award in 2004 while being nominated for Best Full-length Show in 2005.
Dara Ó Briain presenting Mock the Week.
Also in 2005, Ó Briain would begin presenting the panel show Mock the Week, where he featured in all 21 seasons until its final episode in October 2022. He would also feature in similar comedy shows such as Never Mind the Buzzcocks, Room 101 and numerous episodes of QI.
He would perform numerous comedy tours from 2008 until 2018, with his 2010 tour notably playing for 150 dates in total. Ó Briain was joined by fellow comedians Jack Whitehall and Jon Richardson as they set a Guinness World Records title for the highest stand-up comedy gig in the world, held on a British Airways flight for Comic Relief.
Dara Ó Briain (left) during an episode of Taskmaster.
He has hosted The Apprentice: You're Fired! - an after-show for BBC's reality show The Apprentice - since 2010.
Among his other roles included hosting the astronomy programme Stargazing Live and all three series of the gameshow Dara O Briain's Go 8 Bit for Dave from 2016 until 2018. He presented the revived Blockbusters series on Comedy Central in 2019, and began hosting the Channel 4 quiz show One & Six Zeros in 2021.
He would also star as a contestant on Taskmaster in 2022, debuting in Series 14. After winning his episode, he returned in 2023 for the special, Taskmaster: Champion of Champions. He again won the episode.
In recent years, Dara Ó Briain has presented several two-part series for Five, including Wonders of the Moon with Dara Ó Briain, Mysteries of the Pyramids with Dara Ó Briain and Wonders of the Sun with Dara Ó Briain.
Trivia[]
- Dara Ó Briain publicly stated that, of all the robot types, he was particularly fond of clusterbots[2].