Review by Steve Bennett

Aidan Bishop’s rather unlucky that his brother Des has already made the trip from New York to the comedy clubs of Ireland, as it means he will inevitably be compared to his more experienced sibling. His take on Dublin as seen through American eyes only underlines the similarities, although the material is decent enough on its own.

For most of his set, though, Bishop concentrates on that perennial comedy favourite, dating. This silver-tongued smoothie is keen to share his pick-up techniques, with insincere lines that achieve the desired effect without making him look, in his words, ‘like a womanising piece of shit’.

Of course, the very fact he’s cynical enough to have a list of such tricks is always going to carry a hint of sleaze, but he has enough charisma to just about gloss over that. For he is a cool, confident and relaxed performer, not easily perturbed by even the strangest of audiences (and the gig Chortle saw him at certainly had some odd, persistent heckling, which he took in his stride).

He leads the audience through his lessons in seduction with the help of a flip-chart – called, with some sort of misplaced genius, a Bachelor Pad. Like his pulling techniques, there’s a certain amount of trickery to this; with the revelation of the punchlines on each sheet of paper giving the jokes much more emphasis than had he told it straightforwardly. It’s a form of cheating, purists might complain, but you can’t deny it gets the job done.

Much of the observations he presents this way aren’t especially novel. There are gags about penis sizes, material about women wanting ‘bad boys’ to convert and a rather routine commentary on nightclub etiquette.

But his prop, and his brooding charm, ensure he gets the most of this rather unambitious content, and he does what he’s paid to do: get the audience laughing.

Review date: 6 Jun 2008
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett