Tuesday 1 September 2015

Dylan Moran - Off The Hook

As a big fan of Black Books, I was introduced to the comedy of Irish comedian Dylan Moran and the hilarious and intelligent Bill Bailey. Having seen Bailey peddling qualms and in Limboland, last night it was the turn of his Irish counterpart to come to town.


Moran's opening line of "It's been a long time since all the stuff" immediately set the scene and he delivered two rambling 45 minute sets. This man is a weary, middle-aged father just trying to survive everything that life and his kids throw at him. It's not easy spending eight years giving up smoking and subsequently replacing it with food, especially since everything good in this world is designed to go into your mouth. Moran's four stages of life are sharp and scarily accurate: birth, failure, old, death. Kids (or lack of them), pets, a dislike of eating animals who names have only three letters, German (and Finnish) humour and a plethora of made up words and phrases all worked their way into his routine.

At times it was hard to work out just how far Moran had planned to ramble before pulling it all in again. The white wine was swapped for red at the interval and the bar leaner was well used. A couple of half-hearted hecklers were painstakingly shut down as his general frustrations in life took centre stage.

The laughs came hard and fast and the reviews are favourable. Dylan Moran's unique brand of charm may well have got him Off the Hook last night and endeared him to a full Wellington house.

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