Quarehawk

“Vulcanized lizard cock from the moon”

People say the star of (and writing talent behind) Black Books always looks a bit drunk on stage, but I’d say Dylan Moran behaves more like a man who’s just finished a massive turkey dinner with roast potatoes and a few glasses of wine, and now he’s dog-tired and full as a tick. And he moves and sounds like he needs a good belch.

So I suppose it’s appropriate that E4 showed this gig over Christmas.

So… This particular show “Like, totally…” is a couple of years old now, having been recorded in London in 2005, but that doesn’t really matter much because his material isn’t in any way topical. And that’s a good thing.

Against a changing backdrop of his own cartoons and doodles (which have no connection to what’s being said and are impenetrable to say the least), Moran delivers a slow-moving performance, but a good one nonetheless.

He says : “[People often choose their bed partners while drunk], but you wouldn’t pick out a toaster while drunk”.

HA ! That’s a good one, and Moran is funny definitely, but annoyingly unquotable. You don’t come away from this gig with very many quips like that one that you could steal for yourself. His humour is too closely wrapped up in his personality. He’s fond of starting a normal anecdote and jumping into a surreal quip. For instance, he took us through a heart-warming story of childhood innocence, with him enjoying ice-cream at his mothers knee, before switching to “then the cage came down, the CAGE FULL OF JAPANESE FIGHTING SPIDERS !!!!!”.

Surrealism like that is a risky route for a stand-up performer to take. Half the audience end up bewildered, but probably not as bewildered as Dylan Moran himself looks.

On air hostesses : “Would you like a glass of wine sir? With your vulcanized lizard cock from the moon?”

Well dressed for a comic, this Navan man’s got a soothing late night jazz club kind of voice. Mellifluous with an endearing slur. Rumbling pleasantly and occasionally dropping into whispers. You could use a CD of his, turned down low to coax you off to sleep. Although a CD wouldn’t do this act justice, because to appreciate the man you need to take in the visuals as well ; on stage he always looks to be staggering and wavering a bit, pausing to drag on a cigarette or slurp from his wine glass. With his mix of opinionatedness and perplexity, a vital part of Moran’s comedy is him, his persona and his quirky mannerisms.

To sum up, “Relaxing” is probably the best description of Dylan Moran’s comedic style. This was a relaxing and soothingly amusing kind of a show, rather than “side-splitting”. But I liked it a lot ! Hopefully he’ll be back doing Vicar street soon.