It’s a daft cliche that comedians are tortured souls, says Dara O Briain: dentists are reportedly more depressive, and no one claims they dredge their surgical skills “from a very dark place”. It’s clear why the tears-of-a-clown myths annoy the Mock the Week man: if humour sprang only from inner torment, he’d be stuffed. His comedy is serenely untroubled; he comes across as delighted by how his life is panning out, thanks very much, and no turbid psychological depths are plumbed by these perky routines about drunken dancing, ABC books for children or the critical global shortage of helium.
By instinct, I bridle at the frictionlessness of it all. But there’s no gainsaying O Briain’s comic aptitude, while his material is often refreshing in its intelligence, its scepticism of convention and easy simplifications. I enjoyed his scorn for the cult of high-end telly (Breaking Bad; Nordic noir) – even if the interactive routine assembling a new, identikit crime show is a blunt instrument with which to unpick it. Later, he riffs on our culture of sentimentality, nailing its fraudulence while professing merely mild personal distaste. (There’s also a precious gag here about unearthing unlikely ancestors on Who Do You Think You Are?)
One or two observational routines are undistinguished, and at points you wish O Briain would staunch the burbling verbal flow; sometimes, this sounds like comedy delivered by a racing commentator, or an auctioneer. More often, the show is animated by critical intelligence (evident even in a show-stopping closer about where precisely sexiness stops between the stocking and the sock) and refusal to kowtow to everyday idiocies – like the requirement to be earnest when visiting Africa with Comic Relief. None of this is tortured; some of it’s a mite too smooth. But it’s smart, slyly outspoken and doesn’t stint on laughs.
• At G Live, Guildford, 29-30 January. Box office: 0844 7701 797. Then touring. Details: daraobriain.com
