Show Rating:

Kevin Gildea is an accomplished circuit act; but it feels as if he’s put little effort into making his hour-long show anything more than an extended club set.

There’s some good stuff here, and some less-so, but without any sense of occasion or metaphorical glue to bind the routines, the result is less than the sum of its parts. There’s simply no compelling reason why anyone should choose to see this show over a tighter 20 minutes in a Best Of Irish-style showcase, where you would, at least, sample other acts, too.

The weak stuff first: there are dull, hackneyed, routines about RyanAir’s cheapness, airport security, Scotland’s bad food and worse weather, the Irish propensity for drink, not to mention out-of-date topics such as the Danish cartoonists and the colours used for America’s post 9/11 terror alert levels.

On the plus side, he takes nice sideswipes at his own advancing age and chubbiness, he can twist an unexpected punchline out of the most unpromising of set-ups and he brings an animated delivery to proceedings.

A few of his best lines are charming and funny, such as his take on Jesus appearing on toast or the extravagance of P Diddy – which has a neat Irish tagline to boot – but they’re too thinly spread among more mediocre routines, making it near-impossible to build any comic momentum.

It’s a shame, because he’s a quirkily likeable guy, but here he just hasn’t got enough to say.

Reviewed by: Steve Bennett