Last night saw a host of well-known comedians take to the stage at Vicar Street for FM104′s Havin’ A Laugh event in aid of Temple Street Children’s Hospital. The impressive line-up of PJ Gallagher, Adam Hills, David O’Doherty, Karl Spain, Colin Murphy and more would have convinced anyone to buy a €28 ticket and the 3-hour show didn’t disappoint.
Kicking off with an intro from The Phone Show’s Adrian Kennedy who welcomed surprise MC Dara O’Briain to the stage, the comics were playing to a mixed house of twentysomethings right up to fifty-and-sixtysomethings.
The first set came from Eric Lalor, whose comedy is growing more confident every time I see him. He got a great reaction from the crowd and things were off to a good start. Maeve Higgins, the quirky girl of comedy, brought in the laughs but didn’t seem to go down as well as at Kilkenny’s Cat Laughs festival earlier this year. Higgins’ style seems more suited to a smaller crowd. Part of her comedy is in the small facial movements and gestures she makes, some of which was lost on the capacity crowd at Vicar Street, but all in all she has made huge strides from this reviewer’s first experience of her at a gig for UCD students three years ago.
Karl Spain made a show of tearing up his cheque from FM104, prompting Adam Hills to do the same and Dara O’Briain to announce that all of the comics would. Spain went down a storm, as, notably, did all of the slightly older comedians - O’Briain, Murphy and Hills.
Surprisingly, comedy tunesters Dead Cat Bounce didn’t get the uproarous appreciation one might expect for their uniquely brilliant brand of comedy. Though the Vicar Street stage, far more spacious than the one they performed on in Kilkenny, allowed for even more vigour than is already expected from the outfit - they pulled out all the stops to little avail. There was laughter from the crowd and they were by no means a flop, but the fantastic comedy mini-musical “Famine” was met with nowhere near the tears of laughter it received in Kilkenny. It seems older crowds just aren’t in a place to find starvation funny and DCB’s audience is firmly among young comedygoers.
Joint hits of the night were PJ Gallagher, who has been completely on-form for the last few months (no doubt in preparation for this year’s DVD) and Adam Hills who unwittingly caused the entire crowd to belt out the Irish national anthem and politely paused his set until the entire song was finished. Hills’ fellow Aussie Hannah Gadsby, meanwhile, received a mixed reaction from the crowd. Gadsby is pint-sized with short hair and glasses and took to the stage in a trousers, jacket and tie ensemble. She stood out - and in a school bully kind of way, a girl in the audience immediately rounded on that and started to heckle. The comedian was flustered, going as far as to say “I really liked Ireland - don’t ruin it for me now”. In turn, the rest of the room cheered Gadsby’s every retort to the hecklers, and eventually the set went ahead. Her self-deprecating style of humour wasn’t to my taste. Jokes focused on her weight, being gay and other personal exploits, and while there were genine laughs from the crowd (the woman behind me gave a genuine guffaw when Gadsby said “your thighs only have dimples in them because they’re happy!”) it wasn’t for me. That said, I cheered as loudly as anyone, because sometimes there is a desperate need to separate yourself from the element of a crowd that wasn’t brought up well enough not to pick on difference. Heckles are supposed to be funny, not terribly uncomfortable for the rest of the crowd who would hate to be tarred with your brush.
The show, which has now sold out for the past two years, is well worth the ticket price. There isn’t likely to be such a stellar line-up in town for €28 for a good long while, but do seek these guys out wherever you may find them. Check out Culch.ie’s posts on the upcoming Carlsberg Comedy Carnival which features a number of the same names, or make your way to Whelan’s tonight (Sunday) at 8pm where tickets to a David O’Doherty set are just €5 at the door. Looks like The Boy Who Saved Comedy is out to save you a few euro too.
