{"id":4627,"date":"2015-05-13T09:00:45","date_gmt":"2015-05-13T09:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=4627"},"modified":"2016-01-23T22:24:27","modified_gmt":"2016-01-23T21:24:27","slug":"dara-obriain-the-lowry-reviewed-by-emma-rhys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=4627","title":{"rendered":"Dara O\u2019Briain at The Lowry, reviewed by Emma Rhys"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dara O\u2019Briain, Crowd Tickler<\/em>, The Lowry, May 11-13 2015<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re going to book a night to catch a Dara O\u2019Briain stand-up show make it a Monday! As he kept asking us \u2013 what are yous doing out on a Monday night?! Yous can snooze if you like\u2026 \u2013 it became increasingly clear snoozing was impossible. The laughter won-out against the back-to-work yawns, despite our feeling warm and fuzzy in the \u2018purple womb\u2019 of the Lyric theatre, in the presence of Dara whose familiar cheeky face lent an air of intimacy to the Lowry\u2019s vast auditorium.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Briain was full of energy for his almost three-hour set, though the first half wasn\u2019t quite as good as the second, with some of us having to adjust our ears to the fast-talking Irishman, who began with a series of shorter jokes which I found less enjoyable than the longer narratives of the second half. His interviewing of members of the audience became almost formulaic too \u2013 What\u2019s yer name and where\u2019d\u2019ya come from? \u2013 after all, it was a Monday for him too! But after realising he\u2019d missed a comedic treat with the man from Ramsbottom \u2013 inexplicably favouring a detailed explanation of what it means to be a \u2018costs lawyer\u2019 rather than riffing on the \u2018massive hairy sheeps arsehole\u2019 that was \u2018clearly where the humour is\u2019 \u2013 he warmed up to boiling point, using material gleaned from the sacrificial lambs in the front row delightfully throughout the show.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s been on the road since October 2014, having been off for three years \u2013 not succumbing to Strictly Come Dancing<\/i> \u2013 never! \u2013 but, among other things, misguidedly telling the nation to use a colander to see the eclipse \u2013 sorry about that folks! he said, as I recalled holding up a colander to the cloudy sky and scratching my head. Not much has changed across Britain since he last toured, he told us, except for its sudden obsession with pulled pork \u2013 I thought was just a Manchester thing! \u2013 and the pressure on comedians to compete with quality TV drama, prising our fingers apart as they grip onto the latest TV box-set \u2013 Did you see Breaking Bad<\/i>? It\u2019s Amazing. It\u2019s a-mazing. We stayed up all night. It\u2019s amazing. Have you seen Breaking Bad<\/i>?! \u2013 I started to wonder if it was a euphemism for taking meth!<\/p>\n

He had great physical comedy onstage, as well as proving himself to be a suave dancer \u2013 I move well, he told us, up to the \u2018gay line\u2019 \u2013 making a reference to swinging his arms over his head and shaking his hips drunkenly during Jules Holland\u2019s 2008 Hootenanny. He also hit the spot with his gleeful impersonations and sound-effects. We made a list before the show of what we expected him to talk about and were glad to find greater variation than the usual stand-up fare \u2013 though the wife and kids and middling-age were mentioned to ever deepening belly laughs \u2013 and when we returned to our seats after the interval I was happy to see a phrenology bust onstage \u2013 having hoped he would share his passion for science during the show!<\/p>\n

We learnt about Phineas Gage \u2013 the nineteenth-century man whose brain injury led to the ever-mind-boggling study of neuroscience that continues to excite today, though as Dara pointed out, of course he was more hostile after having an iron rod rammed through his brain! We were also informed, rather ominously, that we\u2019re running out of helium. Helium is used in MRI scans and, returning to the 16-year-old boy he had earlier implored to stop posting photos of his penis online, told him that in 60 years \u2013 when you might well need an MRI \u2013 the doctors will say \u2013 sorry, we used it all up on floaty balloons and making our voices squeaky to impress girls, having earlier making us all laugh about the ever-increasing buzz-kills we must get used to as adults \u2013 do you like those trainers? Know who made them? Did you enjoy that burger?, etc. He also attacked the misjudged use of antibiotics and the unfounded MMR vaccine controversy, serious issues of our day, though he managed to make us laugh all the way. Finally he spoke of the ongoing debate about the \u2018gendered brain\u2019 \u2013 are differences between the sexes socially constructed or chemical? \u2013 homing in on the male brain after ejaculation \u2013 for five minutes it\u2019s like someone switched on the Matrix! \u2013 and apologising for certain male fetishes \u2013 not too high: waders not sexy! \u2013 not too low: pop-socks not sexy! \u2013 just above the knee, that\u2019s where the sexy lives\u2026<\/p>\n

The highlight was towards the end of the show when he described his near-death experience in Africa, where he was raising money for Red Nose Day when he was flung off a raft and left clinging to a tree for dear life, only to be interrupted by a rather tipsy member of the audience who had politely raised his hand to make reference to a joke Dara made in the first half, leading Dara to imagine the man in bed later \u2013 delayed laughter at another joke he\u2019d only just got. This would only happen on a Monday!, he told us, as he skipped off the stage, his hand around the red curtain still in view \u2013 ready to jump out at us lest we make a hasty exit, choosing our beds and a box-set over a standing ovation \u2013 we didn\u2019t.
\n 
\nEmma Rhys<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dara O\u2019Briain, Crowd Tickler, The Lowry, May 11-13 2015 If you\u2019re going to book a night to catch a Dara O\u2019Briain stand-up show make it a Monday! As he kept asking us \u2013 what are yous doing out on a Monday night?! Yous can snooze if you like\u2026 \u2013 it became increasingly clear snoozing was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[311,283],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nDara O\u2019Briain at The Lowry, reviewed by Emma Rhys - The Manchester Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=4627\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Dara O\u2019Briain at The Lowry, reviewed by Emma Rhys - The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Dara O\u2019Briain, Crowd Tickler, The Lowry, May 11-13 2015 If you\u2019re going to book a night to catch a Dara O\u2019Briain stand-up show make it a Monday! 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