Presented by 3 Of A Kind Productions
@ Cinema Nova
WEDNESDAY 14 March (until March 18)

You know when you go into something knowing exactly what to expect?

Well, that was me going to David O’Doherty’s new show. I know I find him very, very amusing. I know he’ll sit on the chair on the stage with his cute little keyboard and play songs at times, and stand on the stage and do more traditional stand-up at times, and it’ll all be good.

But in case you didn’t know any of these factors, you now do. Also, just to clarify, I don’t mean that getting what I expected was a bad thing. Quite the opposite, in fact. The jokes were all new and the songs were new too, but the show itself felt familiar, like going to a place you haven’t been in ages and thinking: that’s right, this place is cool. I should come here more often.

I knew that I was going to enjoy the show and how it would probably play out. That said, I can sometimes be incredibly hard on something based purely on the fact that I had high expectations going in, but not in this instance. D O’D didn’t disappoint.

O’Doherty began with a song about how hard life is, and despite the subject matter it got a lot of laughs. The rest of the show is basically about O’Doherty tumbling into a depression after a relationship break-up and how he eventually got himself out of this funk. There are few mentions of things unrelated to this topic, although he does regale the crowd with the tale of how he got the Visa stamp that means he can do shows in America.

When I first saw O’Doherty several years ago I was surprised how much of the show is just like a regular stand-up gig: the musical comedy isn’t always its main focus. I think this is a definite plus for him because some people find musical comedy a bit hit-and-miss, but with his show there’s enough pure comedy without music to keep those people interested. It also proves that he has more going for him than a kids’ keyboard as a gimmick.

For this particular show, O’Doherty delivers material on the tired topic of heartache in his own charming little way that makes it seem fresh. O’Doherty’s take on even the most mundane things can be hilarious so there’s certainly much for him to mine from this particular theme. There’s no real crowd interaction until he calls for requests at the end because the show itself is quite tightly planned. This isn’t a bad thing, and I don’t really know where he’d fit crowd interaction in – I wouldn’t want anything that was in the show to go.

At the end of the show he offered to pose in people’s stupid photos and sign their stupid tickets and this wasn’t a sales pitch as he wasn’t selling anything, he just seemed like a nice guy willing to meet his fans.

Anyone who was in the Adelaide CBD Wednesday evening can tell you of the torrential downpour forcing people to have umbrellas at the ready, but the turnout for O’Doherty’s magic was still very solid, indicating that I’m obviously not the only fan in town. Also, that anyone keen to see this show should get a ticket quick-sticks, that’s if there’s any left.