Review: Seize the David O’Doherty – Newcastle Stand
David O'Doherty
After five minutes of chatting to us in the darkness of the Newcastle Stand, the lights finally come up, and David O’Doherty leaps on to the stage. Children’s keyboard at the ready, he perches on the edge of his bright red stool and gleefully informs us that tonight’s show, on a wet and windy Tuesday on Tyneside, is going to be a life-changing experience. Seize the David O’Doherty is a show about life itself – specifically how shit and dull and miserable it is.
David is 36 years old, you see. A bad age. When his dad was 36, he’d had three kids, got hitched and held down a job in his native Dublin. O’Doherty’s only responsibility, he bemoans, is to make sure his keyboard has working batteries – and he can’t even do that right.
After his girlfriend left him last year, he felt useless, and become locked in a constant cycle of playing on his favourite Wii game, Frisbee Dog, and “posting” Dominos pizza into his face. No matter the banality of the situation, O’Doherty finds a wonderful way of expressing it.
He’s probably best known for his charismatic, droll songs, but there’s actually a surprising amount of traditional stand-up to O’Doherty’s set. We hear routines about getting old, told with intelligence and charm, the odd observational line that really hits the spot, the occasional call-back – and even one or two “actual jokes”, as he calls them. The iconic, plastic keyboard lies untouched on the stage for long periods of time, though for the most part we’re so comfortable in O’Doherty’s company that it almost slips our mind.
But as with any show that tours off the back of an Edinburgh run, sometimes the material can feel a little flabby when given time to breathe. In the opening half hour especially – which was basically just chat with the crowd – and disappointingly in his theatrical closing routine about a dead mouse, which didn’t really offer the kind of pay-off such a long story demanded.
They’re minor qualms, though, in what is by and large a decent show. O’Doherty’s not going to change your life, but for a couple of hours at least he’ll make it that little bit better.
Date of live review: Tuesday 29th October 2012.
