"It's important for all of us to not get too civilised," says Tommy Tiernan. Or rather, roars Tommy Tiernan: nothing in this show is merely said. Tiernan, a former Perrier award-winner and big star in Ireland, offers a masterclass in wringing maximum drama from his material. This line is bellowed, word by over-emphatic word. The routine is whispered confidentially into the microphone, so we all inch forward to the edge of our seats. Tiernan venerates what he calls "divilment", and his own show – with its wild-eyed switchbacks of tone, and a current of danger pulsing behind the poised facade – delivers it in spades. There's no danger of this event getting civilised.
He's bushy bearded these days, and there's a Billy Connolly-ish air to Tiernan. But he doesn't have the Scotsman's democratic bonhomie. The show starts splendidly, with Tiernan simulating the Big Bang with a bubble-gun, playing God as he forgets which bubble-planet he put the people on. This, and all that follows, is delivered with everything Tiernan's got, his body twisting into kung-fu shapes as he hurls out his fireballs of philosophical perversity. He contrasts the people-to-seats ratio in mosques and Catholic churches. He acts out, with something approaching tragic passion, the moment Job snaps in the face of his prankster God.
Sometimes you admire the technique more than laugh at the jokes. Occasionally, Tiernan's celebration of abnormality ("There's no such thing as normal") risks romanticising mental illness – as one angry heckler seems to imply. But Tiernan speaks from personal experience, and his tirades are never glib. His tale of an African safari with his elder brother, who has cerebral palsy, paints its daft picture against a backdrop of delicate family sensitivities. This is a world in which no one understands anything or anyone else, and exultant mirth is wrested from the confusion.
