Comedy review: Colum Tyrrell: The Hookers And Blow Show
Star rating: ****
Venue: Just the Tonic at theTron (Venue 51)
This is properly dark and dangerous stuff from a young comic who has an onstage presence like nothing I have seen. If Joffrey Baratheon ever did stand-up, this is exactly how it would be.
Fair play to him, he does his best to create “ambience” at the top of the show, but only because he feels he has to. Born in Ireland, he has been living in America and he has learned a lot about the sex appeal of the Irish. Not much of it good. Colum is vexed by having to learn a load of new words as a result of the pandemic of political correctness. This is great stuff but his suggestion for the word ‘dyke’ and the possibilities it opens up is not just brilliantly funny but enlightening. It sounds unlikely but this takes us seamlessly into a re-examination of fairy tales, including the tragic fate of Unlucky, the eighth dwarf/little person. Colum hates positivity, has difficulty relating to people with special needs, has his own special philosophy about women (for whom he created his awesome alter ego Pilate Hannigan) and should be teaching childcare for a living. His material explaining why hipsters are like Nazis , and why many of us wandering around in our nice bubble would also have been Nazis is awesome stuff.
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Hide AdAs we run down the hill from his troubled youth towards the end of the show he makes a (nowadays) shocking confession about how he likes his sex. Raw, it turns out. Like his comedy. He has had audiences walk out. More fool them. In an Edinburgh full of PC, middle-class, pity parties this show is like a tequila slammer at a kiddies’ lemonade stall.
Until 28 August. Today 10:20pm.