Standup: Dara Ó' Briain

Ah, Dara Ó' Briain. A very, very funny man - with a brain, too. I actually met him when we were in the same class for General Relativity in University College, Dublin. After graduation, he dropped all that pretty quickly (I dropped it pretty quickly myself, too!) and he went down the showbiz route, also moving gradually into standup. He'd been a champion debater in his college days.. it stood to him, you could say. I've seen him perform several times now, and he's hilarious.

So, as I was to be back in Ireland this coming weekend anyway, I was happy to come back a couple of days early and catch this show. Good job I booked my ticket long ago - the show sold out, predictably. I took an end seat in the fourth row from the stage. I didn't book one for my mother - not her thing!

To describe this day as "wet" would not do justice to the sheer volume of water that fell. I had nervous thoughts, remembering the horrendous floods that preceded the Arctic winters of a few years ago. Earlier this afternoon, my mother and I had a trip to the Abbey Tavern for a meal - luckily, we got a parking space near the door. On a Thursday evening, it was pretty deserted. I decided to go for the steak sandwich for a change - and let me tell you, that was an extremely tasty choice, well presented! Worth a go, definitely. May I also compliment them on their new "food's ready!" alert system - a bell and a bright blue, flashing light that shows both at the entrance to the kitchen, and at the bar. Now we'll all know when the food is cooked..

Dropping my mother home, the car clock said 6.40. I knew it was a bit fast, so reckoned the time at about 6.30 - just right. I dropped her at the door and headed straight into Limerick, splashing through floods the whole way there. As I was stopped in traffic in town, on my way to the university, I checked my watch. O gosh, had it stopped?! It was an hour earlier than the car clock. And then I remembered that the car clock is still on summertime (it's very hard to adjust). Duh. Ah well, this was the earliest I've ever been to an event!

So I got a parking space quite near the door of the concert hall. Mooched around in the car for a while, played solitaire on my phone, then went in. Paid a visit to the toilet, then collected my ticket, got a glass of wine and headed for the cafe to sit, drink, and people-watch (not that the fashions would be so extravagant at this!). Unfortunately, they've reduced the number of sofas there, and what they had were occupied, so I picked the table overlooking the stairs. I also noticed that the bar in the cafe area was open, unusually. I should've expected that, with a sold-out show..

When the doors to the auditorium opened, I drank up and headed for my seat. It took the place a while to fill up, but fill up it did. They weren't joking - in this case (unlike, for example, rock concerts), "sold-out" really did mean sold-out! Balcony too, which isn't always opened. They hadn't made the choir seats (behind the stage) available - but then, Dara isn't in the habit of doing shows in the round. Instead, a curtain covered the rear of the stage. Dearie me, that curtain needs replacing - for goodness' sake, it was patched with masking tape in a couple of places! One hole that was covered looked quite large..

The show started 10 minutes late - there was no support, just Dara, for about two hours. When he came on, he explained that they decided to give people a little extra time to get there, and get dry, what with the "ludicrous" weather. Yes, well you do get unused to it, living in London as we both now do - and which is much dryer.

I timed it - it took him 15 minutes to reduce me to tears. You do need comfortable seats for one of his shows - it helps, for when you're reduced to quivering jelly. Someone remarked, when I mentioned that I was going to this, that he'd been to a couple of his shows, and he had to say, they were completely different from each other. One of his main tricks, you see, is to engage people in the front row - ask them what they do, for instance. He mines them for material - it's the debater in him. Not necessarily restricted to the front row, mind - Lordy, that poor woman, two rows behind me, who had fallen asleep, and he saw her and said "Ah now, shush, don't wake her!" At which point the hapless lady woke and wondered why he was staring at her, whereupon he welcomed her heartily to the show.

I was a lot closer on this occasion than the last time I saw him - and being close, you can really see how he works an audience. He's so sharp - never lets anything pass, notices everything. Much of the material was very topical - down to his making a point of the glass of water that had been left onstage for him, and how we must think he's flaunting it in front of us. So he made a point of splashing it about, to show how extravagant he was, what with the country protesting about the introduction of water charges.

As I watched, it occurred to me that the last time I saw him play in UL was in the Stables bar on campus! (Standing room only.) Ah gosh, that was a long, long time ago. Sure, he even had hair, back then. How things have changed..

Terrific show. You know, it's funny because it's true. Like the poor lift engineer, sat in the front row, whom Dara picked on all night because he found so many interesting things to ask him. Like, can you make them go sideways? And - how about, with all the numbered buttons for the different floors, you add a button that just has "?" on it..

Ah. Well, that's all I have planned for the weekend. Monday is looking like a film, unusually these days. I haven't had time to go through the listings yet, but I'd be quite surprised if I didn't end up going to Interstellar, which has a terrifically high rating. Directed and co-written by Christopher Nolan, starring Matthew McConaughey, Michael Caine, Jessica Chastain, Anne Hathaway, Matt Damon, Casey Affleck, Ellen Burstyn, John Lithgow.. Jeez, everyone wants to be in this year's Gravity, huh?! Well, we'll see.

On Tuesday, I'm going to a set of ballets at the Opera House - which, as you'll recall, is the home of the Royal Ballet. Hey, maybe I'll manage a photo, for once! Certainly, this'll be my first time in the stalls there - the official website had nothing left but standing and restricted view, and the only other website I found with availability was LoveTheatre - which only had stalls seats. Not cheap, but hopefully, worth it!