Tim Motley plays Dirk Darrow, a down on his luck PI, searching for a murderer. His number one suspect is hiding within the Treasury Cabaret.

Dirk Darrow: NCSSI should appeal to any fans of Film Noir. Darrow is a spot-on parody of the typical Noir anti-hero. He speaks like Humphrey Bogart, wears a fedora and has a hard-boiled monologue running through his head.

One of the show’s best features is Darrow’s voice. Motley has developed his hard-boiled 1940s gumshoe detective voice well and the character of Dirk Darrow brilliantly walks a thin line between parodying and homaging great Noir characters like Phillip Marlowe. Motley clearly has a love of word-play which shines through in Darrow’s more complicated jokes.

The show is heavy on audience interaction (veteran’s tip: if you want to be involved make sure to sit near the front). Much of the show is devoted to mentalism, a performing art where practitioners simulate psychic abilities through sleight-of-hand and psychological suggestion. Darrow uses his mentalism powers to suss out the killer.

The mentalism side of the show is impressive. Even extremely attentive audience members would have trouble trying to work out how Dirk Darrow makes such accurate predictions.

Being so dependent on audience interaction means that the show is also heavily dependent on improvisation. Motley plays off the reactions of his volunteers very well, and quickly proved to be a master of backhanded compliments.

A highlight of the evening came when a gentleman’s iPhone started ringing. Dirk Darrow preceded to answer (with some initial difficulty seeing as how he’s normally used to a rotary phone) and thoroughly confounded the person on the other line whilst cracking up the audience.

Not every joke hits it mark, but Darrow was normally the first to admit that by following up duds with pithy one-liners aimed at his earlier joke. The finale (while technically impressive in a ‘how’d he do that?’ sort of way) crosses into gross-out humour not seen in the rest of the show.

Dirk Darrow: NCSSI is a funny and impressive one-man show. Motley is a talented performer who has created a great comedy character in Dirk Darrow. Lovers of Noir, mentalism or character based comedy should make sure to join the private eye for his next investigation.