Friday, 27 June 2025

Dara Ó Briain: Re:Creation, Theatre Royal, Glasgow. Friday 27th June 2025


Because I'm an idiot, I put in my diary that I'd bought tickets for the Thursday performance, and I got one hell of a surprise when I found out I'd made an error - it was the Friday show - as I'd subsequently bought tickets for Ed Byrne at Paisley Town Hall for that night too. Not for the first (or last) time, someone suggested I hire a social secretary. I like both comedians, but I cannot be in two places at once. That is a physical impossibility, so I had to make a choice. My wife prefers Dara. He's a more sophisticated comedian, though both are excellent storytellers, so my Ed Byrne tickets made their way to Renfrew. Cheers, Colin.


Dara opened the show with some observational material and crowd work. Dara's improv skills are acute. He hit gold multiple times with the woman who sells plastic, the IT administrator for brand management at Tennants (Tennants Zero receiving an instant "Fuck Off" from the balcony), and the man who works on a "House boat" (Dara misheard him. What he'd actually said was 'Hedge Fund', but Dara ran with House Boat anyway because it was funnier). My only concern at this point was in making out everything he was saying. The sound from the speakers wasn't clear, and he talks so fast, it was difficult to keep up. 

Then, just as he was getting into his flow on the subject of identity, the one thing we hadn't expected happened. We all got an unguided tour of the Theatre Royal's fire escape corridors and backyard when the emergency alarm rang. It took an eternity to shuffle out. Dara had been talking about not minding people coming up to him for a selfie; it was the chat he detested, so he had to eat those words as we gathered outside. (There's no private fire alarm waiting area for the performers.)

When we were allowed back in, and he returned to the stage to finish Act One (or Part Two, as he now called it), he made a point of informing us that he still didn't mind selfies, but perhaps it shouldn't delay him returning to his work, for the show the people talking to him had paid to see.    

After the interval, 'Part Three' got to the meat of his material: that of his search to identify and locate his biological father. Dara's previous tour, "So...Where Were We?", discussed his discovery later in life that he'd been adopted and his difficult search to find his biological mother. This was the follow-up to that story, its continuation. Once again, he weaved a delicate, sensitive tale punctuated with humour, leading up to a doozy of a punchline that made the audience gasp. The fallout from that big laugh then became the subject of the encore.

Dara is such a skilled storyteller. It's easy to forget, given that he has been performing for thirty-five years, just how talented he is. Whatever his genetics, he's definitely got funny bones.   

Ticket Price: £35.18 x 2 plus Transaction fee £3.95 = £74.31





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