Ready, Steady, David O’Doherty
Space Upstairs, Project Arts Centre
★★★★★
Few things capture the pleasures and discomforts of being alive the way a David O’Doherty fringe set does. In Ready, Steady, David O’Doherty the Dublin comic presents a guided tour of the past few years of his life with musical ditties by way of sombre reflection. The result? A series of songs that are unexpected, cathartic, conversational and sure to be the reason that the floor of the venue is wet with tears of laughter.
Anyone who has seen O’Doherty in full flight, whether on 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown or cycling at speed past a Dublin Ghostbus tour, will know that he sets a high bar: few comedians do what he does today, and even fewer do it as well as he does. O’Doherty arrives on stage with an energy that teeters between whimsy and divilment, and slags off the Dublin Fringe stage intro before diving into a piece on Scalextric.
A key reason why O’Doherty is such a celebrated comic is his ability to recount increasingly graphic tales in a way that feels approachable or even, dare we say, sentimental, such as one about the flying of a pigeon into a bus, or his sheer size at birth – a fact he says his mother brings up ad nauseam. He can also talk about Conor McGregor’s unnerving presidential bid as easily as he can about dropping your keys into a postbox, a skill that makes a 60-minute show pass so quickly that it seems more like a 20-minute one.
“How is this a thing?” he cries midway through a ditty about leaving the washing up for the Baby Jesus (a song that causes one member of the audience to walk out, saying “Hail Jesus” as he goes, which doesn’t faze O’Doherty in the least). It’s a thing, the laughter and near-constant applause of the rest of the audience confirm. Oh, it’s a thing, all right, and we’re the better for it.
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Continues at Project Arts Centre, as part of Dublin Fringe Festival, until Saturday, September 21st
