Dan Tiernan @ Monkey Barrel
In new show All In, Dan Tiernan provides an hour of unrelenting laughter, and the promise of a astonishing career in comedy ahead
All In is the title of Dan Tiernan’s third show at the Fringe, and it couldn’t be more apt. The chips are on the table, the stakes couldn’t be higher. Tiernan is going big, or he’s going home – with an hour this good, home is the last place on Earth we want him to be.
Not least because at home, Tiernan makes some questionable decisions. ‘Questionable’ might be generous, but then ‘decisions’ is outright unfair. Is there much decision-making in actions undertaken whilst mid-psychotic break? Tiernan certainly hopes not. There is, of course, an undercurrent of mental ill-health at play, but in what is an increasingly rare commodity at the Fringe, Tiernan is not looking for your sympathy.
He wants laughs and laughs alone, and he gets plenty of them. In fact, they’re unrelenting. This is a whirlwind of an hour, with the gags coming so consistently that in the forty-second pause he takes to be sincere (although, most of that forty seconds is spent telling us the jokes will imminently resume), we are grateful for the reprieve. This is, it goes without saying, seriously impressive. The hour starts with such energy – he quite literally roars, multiple times – that there is a brief moment of anxiousness that a lull must come, surely, for maintaining such an electrifying atmosphere is nigh on impossible. Tiernan laughs in the face of that anxiousness.
It’s hedonistic, oftentimes gaudy and a bit brash; it’s everything you could hope to find in a late night comedy gig. But, despite its rowdy exterior, the beating heart of this hour is Tiernan’s pure likeability, his inherent sweetness seeping into the set almost apologetically. He is strangely endearing, and whilst we certainly hope the blights of his past remain steadfastly there, we do hope that there is plenty of material left to mine from Tiernan’s hilarious mind, and that this is just the beginning of a sterling comedy career. All In perhaps suggests there is no place left for Dan Tiernan to go – except, it seems, up.
Dan Tiernan: All In, Monkey Barrel (MB1), until 24 Aug, 10.25pm, £11-14