Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Convention is that any Fringe review will talk about the narrative of the show in hand, explaining how Dan Tiernan’s here to talk us through the systems he came up with to try to improve his life, but which ended up contributing to the lowest point of it just before last year’s festival.

But the big draw is not the story he has to tell but the raw, primal intensity he brings to the room. Ranting with a unique ferocity, he picks up on the slightest hint of anything out of the ordinary and amplifies it to hilarious importance, usually taken as a personal slight. He has all the energy of the coked-up drunk at closing time, itching for a fight. His crowdwork isn’t gentle teasing, but lethal-force aggression.

It’s an atmosphere of edgy chaos, with the comedian such an unhinged madman you can’t tell what he’ll be spitting fury at next. Any argument that comedians are all woke snowflakes these days is incinerated by Tiernan’s fire.

Yet beneath it all, the danger is managed. He’s in such utter command of the power balance that he can give the man in the front row both barrels for wearing make-up, yet no offence is taken. We know, deep down, it’s theatrical – and the rage is aimed not at the apparent target but at the cruel world battering Tiernan, causing him to lash out.

As he gets across in a typical in-your-face way, men’s mental health is not all about discussing feelings on civilised podcasts but the visceral breakdown of decent behaviour. It’s a man screaming directly into the face of nervous strangers.

Tiernan uses comedy as a powerful catharsis to confront the ugly, more wretched side of his existence. He tells us how he takes too many drugs, gambles away every penny he ever earned and then some, and spends his time looking at strangers’ dicks via the Chat Roulette-style app Omegle. He wants to fix things, but the frustration that he can’t only makes things worse.

There are other strands running through this, too, such as his desire to be a rapper like Dave – who famously plucked  a bucket-hatted teenager called Alex from the crowd to perform on stage with him at Glastonbury 2019, providing a running joke over the hour. 

That there’s more structure than the puce-faced ranting of a man on the edge is revealed with a theatrical wrap-up. Although this is one show where you might have been happy to believe it was all spontaneous outburst, this exposes the reality that only some of it was.

We also learn that he is, after all this time, finally getting his shit together, which raises the terrifying notion that this is actually Tiernan at his most well-balanced.

Review date: 12 Aug 2025
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Monkey Barrel Comedy Club