David O'Doherty Has Checked Everything

A pizza cutter, a girlfriend, a North Face jacket: these are all things which David O'Doherty, at different times, believed would make him happy. As you might suspect, none of it really worked.

So follows O'Doherty's hour-long, semi-musical examination of the human pursuit of happiness – how to find it, where to find it, and why we can't learn simply learn to shut up about it.

What can be said of the man whose comedy has improved year on year since winning himself the If.comedy Award in 2008, and who has become a poster boy for alt comedy scenes on virtually each side of each ocean? He brings his sweetly kinetic energy to that touchy subject—happiness, eegh— which is generally the kind of material that can turn on an artist. How are we meant to believe that a man who is paid to make us laugh would every really earn the right to be unhappy? This is artfully addressed with an inventive and satisfying earnestness which makes O'Doherty seem to have come of age: he is still a bit of the wacky uncle, the one who we almost don't notice begin to roll around on stage in the midst of monologue. Such is his enchanting, toddlerish stage presence. But he is also a very real performer dealing with the consequences of success, and he weaves potentially sobering revelations with darker moments -- it is this balance which he has finessed so adroitly, and which have earned him his accolades. (One about a surprise in a hotel room takes the cake.)

We can forgive him for moments which seem rushed - he's earned his onstage ease, and we're happy to bask in his jolly glow, if only for an hour.