Tiny Piano Man – Dublin Fringe Festival – Review
by Gearoid O’Byrne

David O’Doherty
PERFORMANCES – 20 – 23 September  -21:00, €18/€16
OTHER PERFORMANCE  – 23 September – 13:00, €18/€16

Venue – Project Arts Centre – Space Upstairs – Duration – 60mins

From the moment he appears to the cheering audience, David O’Doherty engages with us directly.  After identifying various celebrities in the audience (unlikely!) he tells us his parents are there, then that they’re not but will be on the Saturday matinee because they’re in their 80s. He names them, then tells us that they were a “mixed marriage”, as his dad is a Catholic and his mum is a Protestant. Only in Ireland, he says, could a marriage between two white people be called a ”mixed marriage“! He then slags off the venue and the festival to roars of laughter from the audience.

For those who have been living under a rock in recent years, David is an Irish comedian, author, musician, actor and playwright. He is also the son of renowned jazz pianist Jim Doherty. His stand-up has won many international awards over a twenty-five-year career and this show is no exception.

The staging is minimalist, with a black curtain behind with the letters “T P M” stuck in tape on the curtain, a racing bicycle propped up against the curtain and to the front, a stool with a microphone stand beside and the eponymous tiny piano propped up against it.

It’s like meeting an old friend from school that you haven’t seen for a while, who effortlessly engages you with the minutiae of his life, revealing his inner monologue in a warm and self-deprecating style.  This is a man you could go for a pint with (“We’ll go for one!”), and before you would know it, several pleasant hours would have passed shooting the breeze over everything and nothing of consequence. David has that lovely gift of drawing you immediately into his world as though he just arrived for a catchup, with his trusty little keyboard in tow.

The musical interludes are not exactly complete songs and yet it’s as though he uses the songs to unify and connect the multiple digressions that take place in the course of the show as he wanders from topic to topic, seeking the absurdity in everyday life.

From musings about the “Pando” (Pandemic) to relationships, to solving technical difficulties with snared cables and a drooping microphone “Do any of you have a roll of sticky tape?” (Amazingly someone does!). The bicycle apparently belonged to Stephen Roche and won the Tour de France and he cycles off on it to cheering and applause at the end. You don’t know what’s true and what’s comic invention and it doesn’t really matter by the end of the show.

With a mixture of self-deprecating humour and observational comedy, intermixed with songs on his keyboard, he effortlessly carries the audience along.