Dylan Moran - Live Review

Amid all his usual disgruntled rumblings about how marriage, children, aging and life itself have ground down his spirit, Dylan Moran briefly mentions the sort of contemporary art that might present ‘a skull with Findus crispy pancakes stuffed in its eyes’ as a totem of the human condition.

In that thunderbolt moment it becomes crystal-clear how Ireland’s leading philosopher-wit operates. He, too, works like a modern artist but with gags and insight where the pretension usually lies. And the analogy isn’t just because of the rotating series of Milliganesque doodles and sketches which form his backdrop, but because Moran has a unique ability to conjure up obscure, surreal, borderline lunatic imagery that illuminates his chosen topics as if with X-rays, so you suddenly see them anew. His descriptive passages may be fantastical, but you always know exactly what he means, as you laugh at the elegant phraseology.

Moran might have stopped swigging wine on stage, but he still affects the demeanour of the bar-room wag: a man convinced he has all the answers but with an addled brain struggling to articulate them. That is but a lie, however, for when he apparently stumbles into the words and ideas he is looking for, they are perfectly evocative and eloquently droll. When it comes to metaphor and analogy, the man is an artisan.

He plays up this shambolic persona, teasing us that ‘the beginning takes a while’ as he verbally meanders up to his first point. But that lackadaisical attitude is a self-perpetuating myth; within minutes, he’s offered a mature and unexpected takes on atheism, images of masculinity and the insouciance of youth, tapping away on apps rather than risking engagement with the real world. He’s rapier-sharp beneath that shaggy exterior.

This Yeah, Yeah tour is never short of ideas, nor is it short of jokes, all coming from an exactly defined point of view of a man who, though world-weary, longs for the freedom, joy and excitement of youth that the years and life’s responsibilities have knocked out of him. There’s a tragic romance to that idea that, although a professional middle-aged grump, his attitude has been reluctantly foisted upon him by circumstance, rather than some ingrained misanthropy.

Apparently well-worn topics such as the ravages of age, or men and women’s differing attitude to relationships are made fresh through his imaginative focus; while the wide-ranging monologue takes in everything from Ireland’s economic meltdown to grim Scottish weather; from his own underappreciated artistic genius to the films on Jason Statham without ever appearing to change gear. Digressions become routines, apparent asides take us back on track.

His material is both domestic and universal, as he extrapolates greater truths from his own experiences, which mainly revolve around him not being allowed to cower in a sleeping bag free from interference from the world. It means the whole show – two brisk 40-minute sets separated by an interval – is relentlessly thoughtful and funny. But mainly funny.

Ricky Gervais - Live Review

Movies are keeping Ricky Gervais busy these days; yet somewhere between the promotional junkets for The Invention Of Lying and writing and directing Cemetery Junction, he’s found the time to troll round the country on a stand-up tour.

However, he doesn’t seem to have quite found the time to polish off the writing. This show is substantially the same as a work-in-progress show he performed in London back in April, but there’s little evidence of the work actually having progressed, with straightforward routines offering plenty to enjoy, but few surprises.

It’s still a pretty funny 70 minutes, as you’d expect from a comic of Gervais’s talent, but Science feels like he’s treading water. Given that he’s such a perfectionist on his screen work, he seems happy to settle for the adequate, rather than the excellent, on stage.

His shows rarely have much to do with their titles, and Science is probably the most tenuously named yet, as he’s the first to admit. Reading the first paragraph of the Wikipedia entry for ‘science’ is as deep as it gets, unless you count the debunking of the Noah myth or the homophobic prejudices of the religious Right as striking a stand for rationality over superstition.

But we start – after an hilariously inappropriate video by gifted American stand-up Louis CK – with Britain’s Got Talent, and Gervais questioning what qualifications Amanda Holden has to sit in judgment, save for breaking up with Gervais’s old Extras guest star, Les Dennis. It’s graphically gross but forensically pedantic, repeating the points with subtle shifts in emphasis, heavily influenced by Stewart Lee’s style, but made more accessible.

A couple of other comedians are channelled over the night, too, recycling Russell Brand’s famous line about heroin being ‘a bit morish’ and offering a selfish take on the charity Christmas gifts that relies on a very familiar attitude, though the gags are Gervais’s own.

This is why the show never really flies, it sounds too much like a club set that other people could – and in some cases have - done. His extended deconstruction of Noah’s Ark, as told through a kids’ book, for example, is a ridiculously easy target. That doesn’t mean it can’t be funny – and in the early stages this proudly atheist routine is – but the sarcastic comments run out of steam before the legend does. Likewise a rant against fatties is both enjoyably vicious and largely predictable, while the inherent stupidity of opposing gay marriage is nicely encapsulated, but quickly degenerates into descriptions of increasingly depraved sexual activities, using shock as a substitute for surprise.

But taste always takes a holiday when Gervais is on stage. He’s far from PC, and if it’s behind a cloak of irony, it’s sometimes hard to see. An extended routine about an obsessed at the front of a Ken Dodd routine is ruthlessly offensive about someone who’s clearly a troubled woman – especially given Dodd’s well-publicised troubles with a mentally ill stalker. While many of Gervais’s comments are as funny as they are unkind, they are far from guilt-free.

His delivery, as always, is of the cheeky child – saying the latest rude thing he’s heard in the knowledge it will provoke a reaction from the grown-ups, then trying to act all coy when it does. His favourite stance is to jut his face towards the audience – making him almost look as if he’s wearing a cheap cardboard cut-out mask of himself - and pull a fax-innocent ‘what did I say?’ shrug. The fact his voice cracks into a high, vivacious laugh is something of a giveaway, though.

The engaging tongue-in-cheek performance helps ensure this is a fun night. Yes, he does mention his Golden Globes, of course, but rather more cheesily, he’s selling his autographs for £10 a pop at the merchandise stall. Poor chap, must be down on his fortune – that, or keen to avoid the dweeby autograph-hunters that’s another of his bugbears.

An entertaining hour and a bit, yes, but falling short of a memorable one. Maybe Gervais is spreading himself just a little too thin.