Dara O Briain hits the ground running in his latest show, So...Where Were We? Or maybe that should be limping. He arrives onstage brandishing a stick which helps to illustrate a story about his knackered kneecap. He's actually pretty fit now and he needs to be. This is a full-on two-hour-plus show delivered at hair-raising speed. If Jack Dee, for example, delivered the same amount of material it would take two weeks. If he ever uses a BSL person to sign his shows they will certainly have their work cut out.
The first half of the show could be described as generic stand-up, but that hardly does it justice. Whether O Briain is telling us about his mad frantic dash to get the last flight out of JFK when Covid hit (ok, it's not getting out of Saigon like in The Killing Fields but it's still pretty dramatic) or recalling the humiliation of trying to blag a free fancy toilet after a corporate gig he packs so much into each sentence that it is hard to imagine anyone (ok, maybe Billy Connolly) getting so many laughs from a fairly simple premise.
And then, of course there is O Briain's now legendary crowdwork. All he needs is someone's name and occupation and he's off on another brilliant flight of fancy. Ross Noble is more freewheeling, the Pub Landlord more brutal, but O Briain's sheer quickness of thought is breathtaking. Sometimes, of course, the gags write themselves. With Mock The Week having been axed and someone in the front row saying they worked in TV it was pretty straightforward for O Briain to confirm his availability for possible employment. But landing comedy gold like this isn't just luck, it's a variant on the old sporting adage, the more crowdwork O Briain does, the luckier he gets.
Under scrutiny quite a few of his gags are based on contrasts. The contrast between an elegant cane – Oscar Wilde – and a walking stick – Frasier's dad. The contrast between what an Irishman thinks when their wife asks to have a word and what an Englishman thinks when his wife says the same. It could be said to be formulaic but at the time this didn't even occur to me at the time because I was too busy laughing at his stick schtick and other high-velocity riffs.
In the second half however, there is a change of pace. A large chunk is all about the search for details of his birth mother. O Briain knew he was adopted for a long time – though he had a habit of forgetting – but then after seeing the film Philomena and then understandably having some time on his hands during lockdown, he decided to investigate.
And, by the way, this isn't even the only revelation in the show. He also tells us about only a testicle issue. Don't worry guys, it's all sensitively handled and it won't make your eyes water. In fact you'll have a ball.
Needless to say the adoption account is a veritable rollercoaster of a story. I don't know what the Irish equivelent of red tape is – green tape? – but boy did he have to jump through plenty of absurdist hoops to get some answers. I won't spoil the story, just bag a ticket and hear it for yourself. I expect it will eventually emerge in a book, on an edition of Who Do You Think You Are? or as part of a special documentary, but there is probably no better way, and definitely no more entertaining way, than hearing it from O Briain himself.
Dara O Briain tour dates here.
