Review /// Dylan Moran – Yeah Yeah

The Irish comedian of Black Books fame did more than deliver in his Auckland show last night - he made my belly ache from laughing so hard.

Dylan Moran swaggered onto the stage looking rather dapper in a checked shirt, black jacket and blue jeans but reassuringly with his signature messy hair and red wine in hand.

He got the crowd warmed up with a topic close to many a Kiwi’s heart – yes that’s right, the rugger.

Commenting on the news coverage he’d seen, he dryly remarked “apparently Libya is in a spot of bother” but you wouldn’t know it in New Zealand – all we show on the telly is sport.

“Even the toilets are sponsored by the All Blacks - turn the light bulb on and it does the haka at you.”

He delighted the crowd by acknowledging he was ‘pakeha’ and contemplated the idea of starting a second-hand record shop in Devonport or falling in love in Dunedin.

Despite spending a lot of time brooding over what it means to be ‘middle-aged,’ having a body that isn’t what it once was and children who don’t respect you, his humour was not ageist.

The silver-haired man next to me leaned over several times to check if the 20 something year-old blonde lady to my right indeed got the jokes and yes, judging by her fits of laughter, she did.

Universal themes such as politics, relationships, dinner parties, the weather, and vegetarianism versus veganism were all made fun of.

“Meat might be murder, but tofu is just fraud” according to the meat-loving Moran.

He apologised several times for having just arrived from touring Australia and noted our relationship with the desert country was a bit like “someone you used to go out with”.

The audience relished every minute of his performance and the detail of his wit. As the older man who sat next to me succinctly put it, “he’s funny because everything he says rings true.”