Reviewed at the State Theatre on Saturday July 18
More comedians than you’d rightly expect have made their careers off a single routine, impersonation or one-liner. Dylan Moran has his own career-defining role, the madcap bookshop owner Bernard Black of Black Books. But if you thought Moran was squeezing a living out of his drunken alter ego’s half-dozen or so best lines, you’d be wrong; there are a million more throwaway quips where those came from, and his live show features – no exaggeration here – another 200 of them.
Moran is the comedic equivalent of Rimsky-Korsakov’s ‘Flight Of The Bumblebee’. His jokes come along at relentless pace and sting afresh each time, yet he’s not shouty about them, for that would interrupt the cleverness of his wordplay. Off The Hook, a show that’s about to set off on a massive lap of Australia, is 90 minutes or so of Moran discussing topics that his television followers mightn’t be used to – there are sections on politics, religion, family and health, with little to tie them together besides Moran’s distinctive delivery.
He’s a master of syntax and a king of simile, and it all allows his absurdist mind to run free. At one point, he fires in the direction of his Irish countrymen suspicious of Eastern European immigrants (sound familiar?) – such people were refugees, not assailants; “All they had was half a cabbage and a horse with a cough.” Elsewhere, there’s the occasional anecdote – one highlight explains the array of family pets introduced into the Moran household, more useful to teach his children about the inevitability of death than the joy of love.
There’s a little bit of Black left inside Moran, certainly – isn’t there a little Bernard in all of us? – yet while the grumpy shopkeeper once attempted to write children’s stories, Moran instead tries his hand at blockbuster erotica. The audience, needless to say, is well and truly along for the ride. And then, as quickly as each joke has landed, Moran is gone, his thoughts left scattered across the stage in his wake.
4/5 stars
