Maybe don't sit in the front row?

The latest in an occasional series of theatre reviews...

Dara ó Briain : Eventim Apollo


I like my comedians to be quick thinking, allowing good audience interaction whilst also having good narrative ability in delivering a tale that stays with you after they've left the stage. In his 20+ year tenure on Mock The Week, Dara has demonstrated a certain speed of thought but I wasn't aware of his story-telling abilities until I caught his previous tour So Where Were We? when I randomly stumbled across it on BBC2. This told the somewhat incredible (but apparently true) story of him tracking down his birth mother and it was beautifully pitched with moments of suspense, frustration and joy - I highly recommend it and it's available here if you fancy it. 

So, when I saw he was doing a follow-up tour (can you guess who he's tracking down this time?) and playing in quite a few venues around me including the mighty St Albans Arena, I thought I'd fancy a night out which didn't involve traipsing back from London way past my bedtime. But everything sold out instantly, so I immediately forgot all about it and decided BBC2 would deliver at some point in the coming year. Until work kindly offered me the opportunity to go and catch one of the final nights of the tour (he's up to over 180 shows now) in a venue I like (even if it does involve quite the traipse back way past my bedtime).

And he didn't disappoint. It's a top show - the first half is a pretty free format, working mostly around the poor unfortunates in the front row (NEVER sit in the front row at a comedy gig - but that's not what the post title refers to!). They included a divorce mediator who took great offence in Dara suggesting she sometimes drags things out for a big payday ("I'm just thinking about the children"), a graphics designer with an irrational hatred of Samsung (and boy, did we get ALL the detail) and a local planning lawyer ("my job IS exciting - we make laws!"). As is often proved at comedy gigs, there's nowt as queer as folk.

The second half has a much more structured set-up and deals with his search for his father - it's not quite as long-winded as the efforts it took to find his mother, but it includes several twists. One of which impressively blindsides the entire audience in a "what did he just say?" manner and takes the whole show in a completely new direction - it really is quite the rug pull and makes you wonder how everyone involved reacted. 

It was a great night out and there are still some tickets available for the show tonight, so if you're at a loose end then there are far worse things you could be doing than popping along to experience someone who owns the stage and the audience providing great laughs set within a slightly more emotional framework than some shows offer. Failing that, I'm sure it'll be on BBC2 sometime later in the year!

All My Sons - a classic American play

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