Dylan Moran

Okay so it’s a rave but I need to get a few things off my chest after a couple of hundred bucks spent on watching Dylan Moran at The State last night. BLACK BOOKS gave us Dylan along with the brilliant Bill Bailey. Their comedy combination was lunatic innocence with despair and retreat as if they saw what was there and what might be coming and wanted no part of it. Dylan is the drunken Irish poet comic whose turn of phrase is often informed, philosophic and ridiculous in observing human nature. Like all good performers he pushes us to the edge and forces us to observe our ridiculous limitations so we can laugh at ourselves.

So, its vaguely tragic when such talent wanders out on stage ten minutes late for his scheduled performance like a drunk leaving the pub at closing time. It’s a source of agitation when he leaves us to stew for thirty minutes in the break. It’s a mystery when the old Dylan is resurrected for a moment as if sobriety is suddenly recognised as essential to survival on stage. Was he drunk or was he playing a role? He tells us he’s back to the booze and promotes the inevitability of surrender. He’s funny and we laugh but there’s something tragic at an invitation to laugh with a drunk in his surrender to despair.

Faced with the world in which we now live, we desperately want to enjoy his company and what he’ll tell us. But there’s something else going on. He’s toppled over the chaotic line between comedy and tragedy and recognises his own disintegration. Hadn’t he given up the grog? Wasn’t he in a relationship and had become a father? I’m casual and vague on his background and appreciate a comedy assault on our limitations and excesses. A darkness is creeping in and cynicism is taking hold. It invades his funniness with moments of despair that rant and shake the foundations of friendly mockery.

Perhaps the value of Dylan is to be witness to an unravelling brought on by grog and loneliness. No longer clinging to the boy within but terrified of becoming old, he can still bring a packed theatre along with him.

Would I go back for another dose; I’m no longer sure.

Perhaps my view is coloured when I come home to watch SUCCESSION and am left to worry that the world has lost its ability to laugh at itself, that tragedy is dominant and comedy struggles for a way through. An epidemic of digital madness threatens identity and makes a sense of self irrelevant. Or could it be that I’m well into my seventies and my favourite people (like Barry Humphries) are gone and the best of them (like the Dylan Moran I saw last night) are fading and bellowing at age and obliterating their fears with booze?

Could it also be that there aren’t too many of my own nights that pass without a wine or a beer? The world wasn’t a better place in the fifties and sixties of last century; the world is a better place now but its badly broken and needs more than a good laugh. We’ve drained resources to such an extent we desperately need to reform the way we live. Humanity is broken; the few have money and power and control and can dominate the many. We’re at the last tick of the eleventh hour and need an ethical revolt. Social media and cancel culture are a morality cancer. We’re no longer in a place where we laugh freely at the cleverest of drunks. Then again, despair is contagious and perhaps the need to blather is enough proof of the worth of Dylan Moran.