Tom Moran is a Big Fat Filthy Disgusting Liar – Project Arts Centre – Review

Theatre / 04-08 July 2023
Tickets: €18/16

Tom Moran runs onto the stage to the sound of applause at the start of this production. The opening segment of the piece feels like a comedy gig, with Tom telling the audience interesting anecdotes from his childhood. He focuses on his ability to lie and his need to be loved! This need seemed to outweigh everything else in his life. At school, he always had to be the one to get picked for all the jobs. At home, he could never go to sleep at night without telling his parents he loved them! While this is relatively standard material for a comedian to explore, there are a number of revelations later in the piece that take this production to quite a unique place.

This play was originally part of the Dublin Fringe Festival in 2022 and went on to win the Fishamble New Writing Award. It’s easy to see why. This is the sort of theatre you can only write once in your life, as it exposes a number of unconventional aspects of his childhood. While everyone’s family is unusual from the outside looking in, Moran had an unorthodox childhood and some of his earliest memories are the most fraught.

The staging is relatively simple. There are two microphones on stage, and Moran moves between them as and when he wants to alter the mood of the production from comedic to confessional. There are also subtle changes in the lighting that alter the atmosphere in the theatre. There are moments of mild crowd interaction, as Tom carries out a number of straw polls on topics related to his parents.

As a performer, Moran is capable of speaking at an amazing speed! He packs a lot of information into this hour-long production as we get a whistle-stop tour through his 30 years of life to date. His earliest memories are key to the man he became in his later years and the performer tells us of his trips to therapy and what they revealed.

There is a quote often attributed to Earnest Hemingway “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”  Moran seems to have taken this style of writing to heart. While there are a wide variety of gags and other humorous elements to the tale, the moments that really resonate are the ones which feel deeply honest. As Tom says himself, many people wait for their parents to die to write about them. If you missed this production during last year’s Fringe Festival, this is a chance to catch this funny, unsettling and unique production,

Written and Performed by Tom Moran
Direction and Dramaturgy by Davey Kelleher
Stage Managed by Lora Hartin
Lighting Design by Colin Doran
Sound Design by Aoife Kavanagh
Produced by Lisa Nally

Image by Ste Murray