This was the email I received prior to the event:
We're getting in touch with a reminder that the Tommy Tiernan show on Saturday, 6 April 2024, is a PHONE-FREE event. Here's some further
information for you:
THIS EVENT IS A PHONE-FREE
SHOW
WHAT IS A “PHONE-FREE
SHOW”? Just as it sounds. Use of phones/digital devices will not be
permitted in the performance space.
HOW DOES IT WORK? Upon arrival at
the venue, Yondr (the phone-pouching company hired to do this) will have staff
available to help you put your phone in a lockable pouch which you keep
throughout the night. There will be ticket writers on site to assist if you had
a mobile ticket on your phone. If you have reserved seating please take note of
your Block, Row and Seat Number from your digital ticket before you arrive at
the venue.
WHAT IF I HAVE AN
EMERGENCY AND NEED TO ACCESS MY PHONE? You can unlock your phone from
the pouch at any time by going to the clearly marked ‘Phone Use Area’ located
within the venue. Please see any usher or Yondr staff if you need help finding
it.
WHAT ABOUT BARS OR
MERCHANDISE? Please bring your physical credit/debit card with you for use
at the bar/concessions in the venue.
WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS
& IS IT MANDATORY? Yes, it is mandatory. We’re convinced this makes for
a better show for everyone involved. Our eyes open a bit wider, and our senses
are slightly more heightened when we lose the technology crutch we’ve become
accustomed to. And yes, it’s a non-negotiable deal.
I expected carnage with a huge queue of people around the block outside the theatre waiting to have their phones pouched. Instead, we found entry slick and fast, with slight security and no one questioning whether we had a phone as we bypassed the Yondr table and headed up the stairs. It did look odd, though, to see so many people entering the auditorium delicately clutching their pouches, unsure what to do with them.
My wife asked me, "What if someone's phone isn't switched off and it rings? They can't open the pouch to turn it off."
I smiled. "Wouldn't that be amusing!"
Disappointingly, it never happened. (We left our phones at home).
There are two empty seats on my left, despite the show being a sell-out. I speculate as to why: a sudden illness, a death in the family, a break-up involving one partner throwing out the other for spending all their time at work. Not that I'll ever find out. I enjoyed the extra room, though, being able to lean across without encroaching on someone else's space.
The auditorium lights go down, a spotlight beam illuminates the microphone stand, and Tommy walks onto the stage without fanfare or introduction. Taking a moment to soak up the adulation from both sides of the audience, he then moves the stand out of the spotlight and takes the microphone. He makes a gleeful remark about us not having our phones, and we're off.
Garbed all in black, topped with a woollen fisherman beanie hat, he stands before us as the Feral Philosopher King taking the stage to share his craic. He doesn't want anything to distract us from his craft. His pacing is measured and thoughtful, his language vulgar and forthright. He prowls the stage delivering his stories, digressing as the will takes him. He starts by acting out the many singing styles of Bob Dylan's career, then moves on to a story of a murdering paedophile on Death Row. He performs the condemned man's emotional final speech, delivered in front of both his family and the bereaved parents of his victims. He relates how he found Jesus at the end and how God has forgiven him for his sins. He believes he'll soon be up in Heaven, reunited forever with the babies he took from the people in front of him. Only this time, he knows better than to touch them. A dark and delicious punchline I hadn't seen coming.
His tale about ordering a room service breakfast to his hotel bedroom and then fretting about how he'd look, a decrepit fifty-four-year-old Irishman in pyjamas, to the poor girl bringing him his food flies off wildly into his imagination. He figures she must have seen it all but then questions what she hadn't seen. He imagines a scenario where she finds him in bed with a woman, then two women, then triplets because why not, it's his fantasy. But what would he do with three women in bed at the same time? He then acts out what he'd have to do to satisfy them all, amending their positions to his tastes. His choice of phrasing is hilarious (the phrase, "her massive, three-gallon titties," stuck in my mind for some reason).
He rails at the accusation of him being offensive, for these are jokes, and offence is entirely in the ear of the beholder. He starts a story about a man with Down Syndrome and immediately berates us for not trusting him to make the joke about the situation, not the person. He tells us he was once scolded by a man in a small village in rural Ireland, who could not be convinced that the Down's Syndrome Association had seen and vetted the joke, dismissing his claim with a what would that lot know. There's delight in Tommy's eyes as he tiptoes along the safe side of the line.
Despite claiming not to be into music, he manages to sing Ian Dury's Spasticus Autisticus while dancing energetically as he would have done at the school disco and then later gets the entire audience to participate in a rendition of The Eurythmics' Sweet Dream (Are Made of These) in his closer about performing for Prince Charles at his fiftieth birthday concert (they'd been on before him). That night, he brought the house down with his joke, and tonight, he did so again. Show over, he leaves the stage, his job done.
As the auditorium lights signal it's time to leave, I rise from my seat, and my back twinges, bordering on spasm. Hobbling along the row, I notice a large woman in the row in front, walking as if she has one leg shorter than the other. I realise my gait looks similar to hers. As we reach the stairs, I am right behind her, and it now looks like I am mimicking her movement. Whenever the line halts, she turns around. To onlookers, it must appear that I'm trying to avoid her catching me doing an impression of her.
My wife and I then walk back to the car along the ripped-up, pedestrianised Sauchiehall Street, past empty shop unit shutters that have become a canvas for unartistic graffiti and homeless beggars huddled in the shadows of shop doorways. We passed many girls of all ages heading for a night out in Glasgow. I quickly realised the amount of clothing the women wear is directly related to their age. The young ones are practically naked, while the older ones have sensible layers to keep them warm. I can't decide if the young ones believe they have more to flaunt or if the older ones just want the men to work harder to get them undressed. Not that it matters to me. The only woman I'm taking home tonight is my wife. If my back doesn't ease off, I'll need her assistance to remove my socks. This is what foreplay has become. She's asleep before I come to bed.
This is what a night of comedy from Tommy Tiernan does to a man but it's still brilliant craic.
Ticket price: £70.55 (inc all fees) direct from The Pavilion Theatre.
Tommy Tiernan’s brand new show, Tommedian, is a fun-fueled trip through the comic imagination of one of the best comedians in the world.
This is a wild, uninhibited and fiercely physical display of stand up. A madcap parade of characters, memories and ridiculous flights of fancy. Theatrical, poetical and slightly unhinged…. DON’T YOU DARE MISS IT !!!
Tiernan’s legendary record-breaking ticket sales extend across the world. The Star of Channel 4’s hit show Derry Girls and Live at the Apollo (BBC) and the host of his own highly critically praised improvised chat show on Ireland’s RTE 1.
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