The popular Irish comedian and host of TV's 'Mock The Week' has a three night engagement at Salford's Lowry Theatre, and I was there for the first of these in the vast Lyric Theatre main space which was almost filled to capacity, and the buzz and anticipation was high.
I have seen Mr. O'Briain many times on television; not just in Mock The weeks, but as presenter of other less well-known shows such as Go 8 Bit or School Of Hard Sums, and he turns up from time to time on other shows such as QI, and so although never having experienced him live, I had a fairly good idea of what to expect.
He is fast, quick-witted, manic, and a little like a giant on speed at times. His brain never switches off and as he chats to the audience about their jobs and where they live etc, he shows us exactly what made him famous in the first place... his ability to work a room, with fast-thinking, intelligent repartee, pertinent and above all funny.
His excellently devised and impeccably well-thought through set this evening [providing he managed to say everything and in the right order... - you had to have been there!] was one of the most intelligently devised routines I have seen on the comedy circuit. Continually referencing back, and bringing together excellently seemingly disparate and unconnected themes such as working with Brian Cox, builders, virtual reality sex, Brexit, his stolen bicycle, and Dublin's famous ravine!! [again, you had to have been there!]
I think my favourite line from the whole gig though - and I'm sure O'Briain won't mind my quoting this, it's not a show-spoiler - was, "The Norwegian people are friendly the way that Irish people pretend to be friendly."
There is, however, something on which I write much about. O'Briain is not by any means unique in this regard, as I am often drawn to writing about it; and this is the over-use of swear-words, especially the f-word. In Dara O'Briain's opening three sentences, I counted 23 swear-words, some just simply repeated one after the other for seemingly no apparent reason. If I have written this once then I have written it a thousand times; one well-placed f-word, is worth 100 just shouted out for no reason. The more they are used the more 'common' the comedian becomes, and the more the word loses power and impact. O'Briain, like many comedians seemed to be unaware of how many times he was in fact using this word, and this leaves a large gap between his TV image and his live image. This I don't understand at all, because his TV image is VERY FUNNY and it's what brought us all to come and see him live in the first place... so why alter that image and lower oneself in the so-doing. Further, Mr. O'Briain is a highly intelligent and clever man, that much is obvious, so there should be absolutely no need for him to debase himself in such a manner in any case.
The Fake News article and the Irish radio RT news report voice-over as we were leaving the auditorium were excellent - a brilliant and unique touch to end the gig on; I've never seen that done before.
Verdict: A very astute, intuitive and perspicacious comedian with energy by the bucket-load, and extremely engaging. His set was superb and finished in style. If he went back to the TV-image and lost the effing and jeffing, he wouldn't just be a very good comedian, he would be a great comedian. He was also very personable and humble too, and one did get the feeling that not only was he enjoying performing for us, he was genuinely pleased that we all applauded him so enthusiastically.
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 6/12/18
No comments:
Post a Comment