Micky Flanagan

Although more like a humorous best man's speech than a rip-roaring tirade of comedy, the show is always titillating, never dull

Review by Chris Williams | 11 Aug 2007

If anyone should desire, for whatever personal reasons, to attend Mickey Flanagan’s show while blindfolded, the likeable cockney’s perky voice could quickly persuade them that they had in fact stumbled into the performance of a southern version of Mrs Merton. Indeed, by the time Flanagan sets about analysing the many differences between “popping out for a drink,” “coming out” and “coming out, out,” enough misapprehensions abound for the audience to seriously wonder whether or not there is a double entendre they should be laughing at.

In a narrative set that rarely induces anything that could be described as a fit of laughter, Flanagan nevertheless maintains a constant, gentle chortle rippling through his audience which turns out to be quite a suitable sentiment for his brand of comedy. More like a humorous best man’s speech – in which the orator gets suddenly sidetracked by the intriguing events of his own life – than a rip-roaring tirade of comedy, the show is always titillating, never dull.

For the principally middle-aged assemblage, Flanagan’s reminiscences about sexual prowess in the early eighties, a wandering period of denial in adulthood and the inevitable acceptance of "settling down," strike a more harmonious chord than they could do with a younger Festival audience, but this does not detract from what is still a very amusing tale.