Errrr, it's still John Key.
"Still John Key?! Oh gosh, really? He's been there for millennia! It's his third term isn't it? That's nine years? I hope it's the end of it for you."
Moran is mostly very astute when it comes to understanding the ins and outs of the politics of each country he performs in ("Tony Abbott's been great fun to watch in Australia, he just gives and gives!") but he's also come to realise that it's not always necessary.
"I find it useful, but I think the beautiful thing is that it makes you realise how unimportant it is, in a way. Sometimes there are moments when it becomes part of national consciousness more than others, where something the leader of the country is saying or doing really becomes a talking point but, most of the time, the heart and soul of what's going on in a country is elsewhere, I find."
That's something Moran is very good at, finding the heart and soul of a matter - he may be sometimes outlandishly bonkers, but underneath it all he's got a knack for picking up on what's really troubling society at large, and that's exactly what he's done with Off The Hook.
"I wanted to do something that was all encompassing, and to use all these small fragments of thoughts or observations that I had swept into the corner over the time I was having a break - you're always gathering your twigs, you know."
He chose the phrase Off The Hook because of its multitude of meanings, but there is an over-arching theme in the show's genesis.
"It's sort of about tuning in and zoning out at the same time, how people are using technology. You know, this overabundance of information we don't need, and trying to keep your head above the rolling news, and trying to decide what's of use to you, and what's just going to send you crazy or depress you, distinguishing between what's real and what's not."
He has publicly shared his distaste for social media, its endless qualities of distraction and narcissism, but he's equally able to lampoon those who've taken a holier-than-thou approach to quitting Facebook or Twitter, declaring their technological purity to anyone who'll listen.
"Some people already are taking it very seriously, they're disconnecting, getting off the grid, there's a growing movement - I've no doubt that it will become it's own form of religion and people will think it's terribly interesting and admirable, when in fact they're just living the way we did 20 years ago."
His own form of recreational distraction is admittedly quite old school - but he's been doing it a long time.
"Yeah, there's a lot of doodling, and drawing, a lot of watercolours, a lot of indian ink. I've been doing it since I could hold a pen. Doing them is kind of like talking for me, I do it without really noticing, I seem to be always doing it, the way that people make cups of tea that they don't end up drinking."
And now they're available for public consumption.
"We were using some of them as a backdrop for the show in Britain but not on the rest of the tour. I did do some little books though, which will be for sale, as far as I know. I didn't do them for the show, but there's some connection I guess. They're animals and faces, they're illustrations."
Not that he does them for publication or profit - they're more a useful extension of brainstorming, helping to distil his ideas.
"It's kind of a form of note-taking for me, it's a way of finding out what I'm after."
Despite having once famously described life as "Child, Failure, Old and Dead", Moran seems to be enjoying his middle years, and finding satisfaction in uncertainty.
"Maybe when you're younger you're more monocular in your focus, you're a young person trying to get a job, buy a house, have a family, you know there are particular markers of passages in the arc of what you're doing, and then you get to mid-life, and it all seems a bit more fragmented ... I think what's most interesting to me about getting older is that your perception changes. I think with age people become less broad in their brushstrokes, less defined, and a bit more watercolour about everything. And that's fine."
Who: Dylan Moran
What: Off The Hook
Where and when: Performing at the ASB Theatre in Auckland on Friday, August 28 and Saturday, August 29
- TimeOut
