Dylan Moran - "What It Is" Tour

Anyone who has ever witnessed a Dylan Moran performance, be it live or a recorded version of one of his shows has to wonder: just how would the smoking ban affect Moran’s show tonight?

It seems that we weren’t going to find out, as the Alexandra Theatre had notices on every wall to inform the audience that “there may be a cigarette smoked during tonight’s performance.” This in itself drew murmurs of amusement from the crowd slowly drifting towards their seats; there was no way it was going to be just one.

Any Moran fan knows that the man’s stage set up consisted of the aforementioned cigarettes, wine and some form of food product that would form a part of the second act before being thrown into the crowd. Tonight’s special guest? Chocolate.

As the show began, so did the inevitable heckles. Any other comedian would have engaged the heckler head on and spun it out for a while. Not Moran. Looking over in the general direction with a wry smile, the interruption was shot down with a simple “I do so love that accent.”

It’s part of his charm that he didn’t incite a riot with these words. Instead, the audience embraced it, leaving the poor (but rather foolish heckler) to sit down in his seat. A second attempt later that night was met with a similar response.

It has to be said that Moran’s run for the night didn’t, and never has, consisted of gags and one-liners. Instead he spins out anecdotes from real life, delivering them in the dry, sardonic way that captures his audience and keeps them where he wants them.

No one else could get away with the subject matter that Moran does without facing some sort of backlash from the audience. In fact, aside from the heckles, the only time that he had to fend off any unsuspected interaction from the audience was when it was time for the show to end.

In response to a heckler demanding that Moran not be allowed to leave the stage because “I said so”, Moran simply shrugged and launched straight into his encore. Then left the stage and came back on, this time to do an encore derived from things he’d touched on throughout the show but not really talked about.

If ever there was proof needed that Dylan Moran can take a seemingly mundane topic, put his trademark ironic twist to it and give it back to an adoring audience, that was it. An unforgettable experience.