IF YOU'RE the sort of person who only goes to one comedy gig a year, grab your coat, here's the one for you, writes Brian Boyd. This year's Perrier award winner at the Edinburgh Festival, Navan comic Dylan Moran is travelling the highways and byways over the next few weeks in an effort to show people at home why people abroad think he has the ability to enter into a Billy Connolly/Eddie Izzard level of superstardom.
An embarassing 24 years of age, Moran has won every comic award going - from a local Dublin talent contest, to the So You Think You're Funny award, to a Time Out award and on to the Perrier where he came first out of 250 very experienced - and very accomplished comics from all around the world. His appeal is simple: apart from being the most rawly talented comic this country has ever produced, he brings the all too rare qualities of literacy and intelligence to an art form that is frequently sullied by "blokeish" bluster and innane, cliched patter.
There's a very strong supporting cast on the tour. Fellow Navan comic and the man who this year won the Baby Perrier award that Dylan took three years ago, Tommy Tiernan, will be alternating the support slot with Dublin comic, Barry Murphy, an ex member of Mr. Trellis. Dates: Belfast Arts Theatre, tonight; Cleere's Theatre Kilkenny, Saturday and Sunday; UCC Granary Theatre, November 27th and 28th; Galway Town Hall Theatre, 29th; Sligo's Hawk's Well Theatre, 30th; Waterford's Garter Lane Theatre, December 1st; Limerick's Belltable, 2nd and Dublin's Andrews Lane Theatre from December 10th to 14th inclusive. Tickets from individual venues.
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