Tommy Tiernan is a name that many of you may never have heard, he is a chat show host, an actor, a newspaper columnist but more importantly he is a stand-up comedian and this was the talent he had on show at the Lowry this evening. Perhaps even more surprisingly to many, he was playing in the larger Lyric Theatre and was more or less sold out. In truth he is far better known in his native Ireland but he is becoming more of a household name amongst the comedy audiences across the UK.
The most striking thing about Tiernan’s stage set up was a rather strange gothic image that was being projected above the stage – it appeared to be some sort of stag skull and bone configuration and whether deliberately or not it created some discussion in the audience members around me and likely further afield as we all gave theories on what it was. Tiernan did actually answer our question quite early on in his set but I won’t spoil the joke for those who may see the same show later on tour.
Tiernan himself is quite a slight man with a grey beard and was sporting a black hat – something I have seen him wear on various television appearances. He confesses to be 50 years old and is clearly a man with many years of stand-up experience under his belt – he came to the stage to a very warm welcome and was clearly very comfortable in his space. He actually chastised a member of the front row for placing a drink on “his space” and proceeded to explain where the boundary was, albeit with a smirk on his face the whole time.
It is difficult to describe Tiernan’s style of stand-up comedy, partly because he has some very controversial things to say. Some of the topics he covers particularly in politics, religion, nationalism and race are without doubt very close to the line of what may be considered acceptable in the current time but he delivers this material in a conversational way – almost as though we were having a chat down the pub. This made for an interesting evening as well as an entertaining one – almost without realising it until the end.
The audience was a mix of local Mancunians and Salfordians as you might expect at The Lowry but a quick poll conducted by Tiernan also made it very clear that 50% of the audience was Irish. He even joked that “he could have done the gig on the ferry over” which drew a huge round of applause.
The inevitable subject of Brexit came up quite early in Tiernan’s set but he addressed this as an Irishman looking in from the outside. He used the differences between Irish and British mentalities to great effect, even using an example from the weekend as he watched The Grand National from his hotel room and saw the look of shock on the presenters faces when a black ex-footballer Dion Dublin suggested he was only at Aintree to “top up his tan” – Tiernan making the point that the equivalent comment on television in Ireland would be met with a response of “I think you’re pretty much done Dion”. It is this point in the show where I really started to see just how talented Tiernan is as a comedian.
Other highlights for me included the story he recalled of when he was working in a club that was robbed by some locals with guns – as he recanted the story he seamlessly included a section of comedy where he proclaimed he would never use his own accent if he were said gunman. He then proceeded to complete the same sketch in several different accents – some of which were a little politically incorrect but nevertheless funny and stayed just about on the right side of acceptability.
Tommy Tiernan is a very talented comedian who should perhaps be known to a more mainstream audience in the UK and with shows like this he may just achieve that. I came into the show knowing very little about Tiernan but I left as a huge fan.
Reviewer - John Fish
on - 7/4/19
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