Dylan Moran's “Like, Totally”


Title: Dylan Moran's “Like, Totally”
Rating: 3/5
Genre: Stand-up Comedy
Starring: Dylan Moran

“Now, I meant to talk about something else earlier on, and I've forgotten what it was. I've remembered what it is again, but I've also forgotten. And that's really what adult life is like most of the time.”


Let me keep this quick and to the point as I have the odd craving for a glass of wine and a smoke. That is the effect this witty Irishman has on me; the unquenchable desire to get drunk for no reason other than because it might be fun. Or it might not, who knows? And whilst it's been two years since he debuted with “Monster” he seems to have changed a fair amount in that time. One particular diversion involves him eating fruit and drinking tea. This isn't the Moran I remember, he seems all too sober to be that crazy Irish drunk stumbling around on stage forgetting his train of thought. Well, actually he still forgets his train of thought relatively often, but that's no surprise given how often he gets side tracked by something else that annoys him and feels like venting.

More so than with other comedians is it important to pay attention to what he's saying, otherwise – like me – you'll remember a conversation about falling in love only to have your attention return moments later and he's screaming about being trapped in cage with deadly spiders surrounding him whilst a fat elderly woman screams at him to dance. As the title references, he doesn't seem to talk about anything in particular and yet he manages to talk about absolutely nothing for over an hour. His style is very much observational but he never regurgitates the same cliché stereotypes; using Hitler's vegetarianism as proof that all German food is awful or commenting that stupid Americans sound more stupid than the rest of the idiots in existence by the virtues of their accent.

Whilst I'm tempted to blame the editing for the very rapid topic transitions, I know this can only be to blame for part of my disappointment here; many of the jokes have a tendency to run on for a time, as if making sure to get everything he had callously jotted down on his notepad to say out before he gets side tracked and moves onto something else. The problem is not all of his observations this time around hit the mark; at one point he 'observes' that all German's are hard faced and ugly only to later contradict himself with a bit about German Storm Troopers turning heads as women like a man in uniform. He's not as wild or crazy; everything feels like its been toned down, and whilst he still remains amongst the best at concisely painting a picture he feels all too restrained for this to match his past work.

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