| 02 September 2010
“Even the Dalai Lama is only a line of cheap speed away from being an arsehole.”Tommy Tiernan is a multi-award-winning stand-up with a reputation weighed down by criticism of his occasionally controversial sense of humour. His material in Crooked Man draws from his ideas about sex, religion and family in a forthright and potentially offensive way, but the audience’s response is simply warm laughter, and there isn’t a hint of malice.
Tiernan performs with ease and a fondness towards the crowd, making it clear he is an old-timer in the game. He has a startling ability to morph into different characters, through voices and incredible vocal effects, with a simple hand gesture demonstrating his remarkable resemblance to Hitler.
Some of his jokes are unfortunately hackneyed – we’ve heard plenty of jokes about Brad and Angelina having loads of adopted children; I thought we were over that ages ago. It’s all a bit too predictable, as well.
It’s a shame at times that Tiernan borders on the fuddy-duddy, because there is a lot of good stuff elsewhere in the show. He talks about his Irishness, a rabbi, really large numbers, all wrapped up in a mishmash of thoughtful, steadily paced jokes and impressions that leave us, as he wants us, thinking “what the…”!
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