Keith Farnan: Fear Itself

39658 original

So strong is the Irish comedy brand that it must be tempting and entirely possible for that nation's comics to make an entire career out of riffing on familiar Emerald Isle topics, and indeed, there are plenty that do. It's a tempation that Keith Farnan resists in this intelligent, warm and entertaining exploration of the global and personal reasons we have to panic and why, in the end, it's good for us to do so.

The energy, enthusiasm and slight unhingedness with which Farnan starts, kicking off with a rapid-fire prediction of the front row punters' deaths, is sustained throughout and helps lift the show as he probes into dark corners, as well as on a few occssions when some gags don't quite hit the spot. Well known for his political engagement, he's on wonderful, incisive form again here, with an IRA-led mission to stop an asteroid hitting earth (and why the Ulster Unionists would object) and an almost endearing little foresight of the day electrical applicances rise up to avenge the death of World War Two codebreaker Alan Turing.

It's an ambitious show with a complex theme that Farnan isn't always able to pivot back to successfully. His frequent on-the-spot explorations of ideas that have just occurred to him—a joy though they are to behold—perhaps serve to deny the show the coherence and completeness it would otherwise have, but with tangents as hilarious as these, he can be forgiven.