Paddy Lama – The Shed Talks – Dublin Fringe Festival – Review
by Brian Merriman

PERFORMANCES – 12, 13, 18 – 20 September 18:15, €16/€14
Venue – Smock Alley Theatre – 1662
Duration – 75mins

Written and Performed by Jason Byrne
Directed by Feidlim Cannon

‘The Shed’ was a place where flowed a fountain of all knowledge, of Dublin’s kin and unique advice in the Byrne household in Ballinteer.

Star comedian Jason Byrne’s first play is a loving homage to his late father Paddy. Clearly, there was a lot of wit in the Byrne family and Jason ‘did not lick it off the floor’. No reviewer could ever fault the intent of this warm piece of nostalgia and honour for his Father. He delivers that.

We open in Paddy’s shed, his refuge at the end of the suburban garden, which is stuffed with souvenirs, appropriated during his life as a Cooper in Guinness and as a husband, father and independent spirit. There is a terrific soundtrack from the times and care is taken to give us the sense of this great character.

I wondered as to how the stand-up comedian would cross the dramatic bridge into more formal theatre. Comedians are masters of manipulation of emotion – they have to be, it’s a tough profession. Byrne has an advantage here over other debuts.

The text is fluid. It is not a delivered script, per se, where each word is crafted and each line begins and ends with purpose. Here, it frequently sailed more closely to the apparent casualness of a stand-up routine – a series of connected, rehearsed stories. The structure even relies on the comedian’s old trick of laughing at their own jokes, the oft-repeated ‘vinegar’ joke especially – it relaxes an audience and helps them share in the intimacy of a comic turn. It makes the comedy performance personal and likeable.

Byrne breaks the fourth wall at times by commenting on the ‘technicals’ and this is a bit of a dilemma in the structure. The play needs to place ‘Jason’ in the shed and to distinguish him and his purpose for being there, more distinctly from Paddy. Jason is in Paddy’s space and at times this sense of location and purpose for both, blurs somewhat.

Paddy is a man of his time, he is proud of his son, lucky in marriage and an amiable drinking buddy, who adapts life’s rules to suit the occasion. His son adapts the genre of theatre in a similar way.

Feidlim Cannon of ‘Brokentalkers’ directs and he knows how stories should be told in theatre. Cannon uses some good direction here to give a stronger sense of theatre to the piece. I recalled their recently deceased great storyteller, Liam Burke (ex-Brokentalkers ‘Silver Stars’) who would have been a similar vintage to Paddy, on arrival into the show.

Paddy regales us with some stories from a life of contentment and fulfilment. Byrne junior is respectful and loving in his portrayal. The use of family recordings helps the narrative and we do get a strong sense of a Dublin man, one of those characters that seem to be a much rarer occurrence in our more sophisticated modern times. That life wisdom is a great loss.

This first play relies on Jason Byrne’s stand-up delivery and structure a lot. It has a further journey to go to find a secure position in writing for the theatre and in theatrical delivery. As Jason reflected and honoured his Dad well, I felt Liam would have enjoyed the company of both men.  I hope they have found a shed to share up above?