Nikki Payne: My Big Fat Donated Kidney
Live Review

Some comics are so desperate for fame, it seems they’d give a major organ for a decent show. Well, that’s exactly what Canadian comic Nikki Payne has done – and the trade has paid off big time.

My Big Fat Donated Kidney is a relentlessly funny account of her experiences – both medical and personal – of giving her organ to her desperately ill father. Sounds worthy, eh?

But, in fact, it proves a sturdy framework on which to hang not just the inevitable litany of humiliations and indignations that any such operation involves, but also allows her to paint a none-too flattering portrait of her backwards Newfoundland family and the bubbling animosities at its heart.

Her father is, by this evocative account, a drunken, insensitive, short-tempered asshole with a history of destroying every family gathering. The donation of the vital kidney to this bitter ingrate becomes an act of competitive spite against her siblings, rather than any noble act of selfless heroism.

She’s more than willing to portray herself in an unbecoming light, and if the medical process sometimes stripped her of her dignity, here she cavalierly abandons it at any opportunity for the sake of a laugh. Her responses to every unusual situation in this unique tale are always inappropriate, and she has no hesitation in telling us exactly how so.

In throwing caution to the wind this way, she has produced a compelling ride of a show. She delivers with a manic pace; her squawking, lisping voice making her sound like a South Park character, with solid punchlines coming along every minute. If there’s any criticism, it’s that the show is too consistent in pace, with no quietness to counter the unremitting conveyor-belt of gags.

Payne complains that whenever she tells someone of her renal sacrifice, they unfailingly patronise her by saying she has donated a ‘special gift’ – a phrase she claims never to want to hear ever again. But that’s exactly what this three-time Canadian Comedy Award winner has for stand-up, if not always for compassion.