Just as people think of John Cleese as Basil Fawlty, it's impossible to see Ardal O'Hanlon without remembering him as Father Dougal, the eejit priest in Father Ted. O'Hanlon has tried hard to exorcise the eejit. He's written a dark, complex novel, Talk of the Town, attempted comedy drama with the flop Big Bad World, and again returns to stand-up. Desperate to escape his Father, O'Hanlon bounds on stage at City Varieties in a decidedly un-Catholic, outsize tartan suit. It doesn't work. You can almost hear the audience thinking: "Why is Father Dougal wearing a horrible big suit?"
To his credit, O'Hanlon could have any audience in raptures just with a five-minute stint as the daft priest, but he refuses to compromise. Stand-up is where he started, and stand-up may be where he'll one day finish, since there'll always be a demand for a certain type of self-mocking Irish joke. There are jokes about Irish boy bands, jokes about Irish morbidity, and a very funny one about discovering a lost tribe of Irishmen in the Amazon jungle. O'Hanlon is certainly entitled to his indulgence, but perhaps he reaches a bit too quickly for the safety net of jokes about his homeland.
Although O'Hanlon is brilliantly analytical on marriage and casual sex, he tends to coast. He has the classic, mildly agitated conversational delivery of many a great Irish comic, but it's wasted on mundane subjects such as hotels. More promisingly, he tackles genetic modification and the pace of modern life, but unlike watching, for instance, Ed Byrne, you don't feel you've learned anything or had your preconceptions challenged. Ardal has more in his locker - lest we forget, he campaigned for Danny McNamee, wrongly imprisoned for the Hyde Park bombing. But having achieved mainstream success, he seems reluctant to test the boundaries of a mainstream audience.
Perhaps this is getting him down. Occasionally he seems thoroughly lost for words - "I don't know what to say . . . you can probably tell" - and his act triggers laughter rather than uproar. Perhaps Ardal could do with some spiritual guidance. At least heaven has sent an excellent support act: Will Smith plays a sexually frustrated, socially inadequate "posh boy" with wonderful aplomb.
Ardal O'Hanlon plays Derngate, Northampton (01604 624811), tonight, then tours.
