D'ats Life

Was it just me or did the last two D'Unbelievables shows seem to run as long as your average Andrew Lloyd Weber musical? Both…

Was it just me or did the last two D'Unbelievables shows seem to run as long as your average Andrew Lloyd Weber musical? Both A Bit Of A Do and I Doubt It Says Pauline became box-office mini-phenomenons and they helped make the team of Jon Kenny and Pat Shortt into two of the most country's successful comedians. The shows also reappropriated the use of vernacular comedy from so many dire hotel cabaret evenings and allowed people to realise that national self-parody didn't have to begin and end with people called McGinty endlessly going into a bar and having a funny thing happen to them.

D'Unbelievables firmly root their humour in the parochial, and they do so brilliantly. Every nuance of speech, inflection of accent, mannerism and posture is ruthlessly shot down, put over their shoulder and dragged back to their theatre workshop where they refine and stylise it to their own requirements. With the sort of parody they specialise in there's always the danger of reducing everything to the lowest common denominator but, given Kenny and Shortt's background in dance, mime, experimental theatre and music, they manage to avoid the cul-de-sacs.

This new show is no great radical departure from their previous work, except that the story-line is more free form (if you accept the euphemism). Basically a collection of sketches, the two of them engage in a sort of T na G version of The Fast Show as they morph from character to character - with the usual amounts of audience interaction thrown in for good measure. Set in the fictional village of Kildiccen, we're introduced to (in no order of appearance) a returned Las Vegas style entertainer (who abruptly dies); a scutty local politician canvassing votes with all the finesse of well, a scutty local politician; a Hattie Jacques style nurse who can convey menace simply by the way she slips on her surgical gloves and a demented trad band.

Just though as you felt a certain rhythm was being established, Jon Kenny upped the ante considerably with a marvellous portrayal of the local undertaker. Mixing pathos with off-kilter humour, Kenny introduced some welcome light and shade with this virtuoso performance.

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They really need to work on the ending of this show, though, and perhaps tone down some of the more obvious characteristics of some of the acts. Then again, it contains some of the best lines they've ever written.

Brian Boyd

Brian Boyd

Brian Boyd, a contributor to The Irish Times, writes mainly about music and entertainment