Show Details
David O'Doherty Is My Name
Show type: Edinburgh Fringe 2006
Starring Comic:
David O'Doherty

David O'Doherty Is My Name


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Description

if.comeddie award nominee


The viscount of rumpled whimsy returns to Edinburgh with two small keyboards from 1985 and quite a lot of things to say. Some of the things will be ridiculous, some will be vaguely profound. There will be a song about how he was born twelve days before Tiger Woods.

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Reviews

Original Review:

Show Rating:David O'Doherty Is My Name rated 4/5

What's this? A change to David O'Doherty's Very Low Energy Musical Whimsy™? Well, don't fret, it's only a minor one to Very Low Energy, And Slightly Furious, Musical Whimsy, as he gripes ineffectually about mobile phone bills or airline check-in procedures, all in the pretence of challenging major corporations.

Otherwise, this charming Irishman is still doing what he's always done, celebrating petty trivialities and simple pleasures. Only this year it's earned him the big award nomination. "To be honest,' he admits at the start of this post-shortlist sell-out. 'It's been quite easy to get tickets to my shows for the past five years. But not in the last 72 hours.'

Why this year? Well, it is the funniest show he's ever done and possibly slightly more accessible and structured than previous years. But it still has the air of being amiable, carefree and shambolic, which disguises some subtly clever writing.

Broadly, it's another biographical hour, but not really. Inspired by the self-aggrandising 50 Cent movie Get Rich Or Die Tryin' O'Doherty presents a series of made-up and exaggerated vignettes from the childhood story he wishes he'd had.

It's all just context for the unrelated, but quietly marvellous songs accompanied as ever by his low-fi keyboard. Not for him music's usual big themes of love and loss, instead he celebrates obscure things that everybody might do, but have been criminally overlooked by previous songwriters. Self-evident tracks include I Think Your New Girlfriend Is An Arsehole, I've Just Send A Text To The Person The Text Was About, and the wonderful Very Mild Superpowers.

Delightful, expertly-told anecdotes, rich in descriptive prose provide a third strand to his show, and O'Doherty seems to have a stronger collection of tales than ever this time around. Favourite is the story of how he conducted a phone interview with a Dublin radio station in such a drowsy state that he wasn't even aware of doing it.

Proof, were it needed, that the D.O.D. can be funny in his sleep.

Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
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Comments

Sorry that I've lazily reviewed only about 120 shows, written about 40,000 words of reviews this month, taken chances on obscure comics and not just shows that might get the awards, and only started writing about DOD for about four years ago. And 'cunts'should really take a lower-case 'c'.

Steve Bennett, August 2006

Chortle you lazy Cunts....you waited till he was nominated till you reviewed his show. Just shows one how behind the comedy scene you really are. Wake up and smell the future you lazy, wannabe failures! What odds on this being printed?

Fran Coyne, August 2006

This is the thrid time I've seen The DOD and he is on great form. He is a charming guy that the ladies want to hug and the guys want to go down to the pub with. His comedy is gentle, cleverly constructed and most importantly very funny! I can with confidence recommend his show to everyone, let's get him in a more high profile slot next year

Mark, August 2006

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