Review: Tommy Tiernan, Soho Theatre

Tommy Tiernan delivers a riveting 80 minutes of comedy that's a sort of state-of-the-nation address about his home country.

Tommy Tiernan - review

Tiernan's sermon paints a reactionary picture of Ireland, but his comic timing and affection for the country wields a hypnotic force.

Opinion: The wrong kind of audience participation

Tommy Tiernan had one of those people in last night at the Soho Theatre. You know, the ones who insist on interrupting your seamless routine and think that they are helping you out.

Tommy Tiernan: Stray Sod, comedy review

With a sermon-like delivery half-way between home hearth and hellfire, Irish comedian Tommy Tiernan romps through his latest bawdy hour of observational comedy.

My comedy hero: Des Clarke on Tommy Tiernan

'He'll say "this is who I am" and he'll wait til an audience comes to him'.

Round-up of 2011: Comedy

Tim Key, Tommy Tiernan, Stephen Merchant, Luke Wright and Jerry Sadowitz make our laugh-list.

Best of 2011: Comedy

The best comedy shows of 2011, including Tim Key, Tommy Tiernan, Stephen Merchant, Luke Wright and Jerry Sadowitz.

ITV2's sketch-mistress Katy Brand introduces highlights of the 2011 Laughs in the Park open-air comedy event held in St Albans, which include the event's founding father, Eddie Izzard, fresh from becoming the first solo comedian to perform a gig at the Hollywood Bowl. He and fellow headliner Ross Noble share a gift for meandering absurdity, whether directed at God, the Romans or Bono, but by all accounts the brilliant Irish comic Tommy Tiernan upstaged them both: look out for his bit about mosques and their lack of chairs.

The voiceover man from The X Factor gives a bellowing introduction to Michael McIntyre and the latter skips onto the blazingly lit stage to a hysterical welcome from the people of Dublin. And that's the pitch it stays at throughout - bright lights, big laughs and constant reminders from McIntyre that what we're seeing is "Brilliant! Fantastic! Well done! Brilliant!" Which it certainly will be for anyone who likes jokes about Irishness. Keith Farnan riffs on the Irish fondness for drink, arguing that "If Irish men didn't drink we'd be Italian", and their rubbish dancing (ah, Riverdance jokes - remember them?), while Tommy Tiernan jokes about the Irish economic boom: "We found out when times were good that money doesn't suit Irish people." But it's the sheer strangeness of Andrew Lawrence's act that may stay in the mind longest. It's hard to improve on his way of describing himself: "Ginger hair, creepy face and voice like a sex offender." But funny, too.