Comedy / dylan moran
Review: Dylan Moran, Hippodrome
Before Dylan Moran had even got a word in, someone in the audience with remarkable powers of perception and a firm grasp of biology yelled out, ‘You’re old!’.
To me at least, the Irish surrealist seemed much the same as ever: there was the anxious pacing, the well-timed unhinged smile, the hair which grew wilder as its owner grew more exasperated. But perhaps the heckler had wanted to politely point out something which had indeed changed – something drastic.
In stark contrast to his heavily alcoholic stage and screen persona (think Bernard Black in the Black Books series), a teapot had replaced the customary bottle of wine. Was this to be a new, mature, dare I say sensible incarnation of Moran? One that wasn’t muttering, while looking slightly dishevelled, into a glass of wine?
is needed now More than ever
However, from the moment he gave his analysis on Trump and Brexit – that we need not fear an alien invasion because they’re looking down thinking, ‘We’ve got to see how this shit ends’ – it was clear that the heckler need not have worried. This was the same old Moran, peddling absurdist takes on his go-to topics of childhood (‘everyone wants a better origin story than their own parents’), love, sex, parenthood, and ageing. And unlike many comedians, he never once shied away from deconstructing and destroying any part of human existence – but somehow, by doing so with childlike squirrel- and ham-based metaphors, he always absolves himself.
He did touch on new ground, such as the internet as a cat-watching device and advertising yourself on dating apps (‘I like jazz and deregulated finance… and making my own custard out of gravel’), but these targets were too easy for him. It inevitably, gloriously segued into the same destruction of all that is sacred, finishing on his own marriage, where he likened all couples to ‘two idiots trying to make a pantomime horse’.
As I waited to cross the road outside the Hippodrome, a couple behind me were still laughing. The guy said weakly, ‘I can’t stop thinking about that one about the ham.’ It could have been one of many – each of them equally delectable.
Dylan Moran played Bristol Hippodrome on Oct 20.
Read more: Interview: Phil Nichol (Comedy Box, Nov 2)
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