Review of Dan Tiernan: STOMP

I was delighted to be able to come back to the Monkey Barrel to see Dan Tiernan‘s new Fringe show STOMP, having seen his other show, Going Under, back in March.

There was quite a crowd queued up when I rocked up outside the venue, and proceeded to make friends with a lovely bloke called Tim who I then sat next to in the front row (because not everyone was brave enough to choose that space!). Anyway, we’ll get back to Tim later.

Vibe

Dan Tiernan offers up a great mix of hilarious, often self-deprecating humour (with a few call backs), off-piste humour (danger cans) and chaotic energy – that sometimes catches you off guard. Luckily he chose one man in particular to concentrate most of the random shouting at, and that was appreciated.

The show itself

I really enjoyed the hour-long show with Dan, where he talks about things like gout, his dyspraxia, drug use and amongst other things. I laughed throughout, with only a few jokes falling a little flat – every time he recovers well and swiftly moves onto the next laugh.

Some of Dan’s humour is entirely relatable – like being scared of escalators. I’ve been scared of those ever since watching those ‘Worst Freak Accidents’ and ‘Worst Imaginable Deaths’ (which also brought back my fear of elevators tenfold).

And I’m sure I, too, could recreate fart noises with my back against a hard surface if I truly wanted to (I don’t – I’ll leave that to Dan. I’ll also leave bringing a bong and a lighter on stage to Dan).

One thing I wasn’t expecting in Dan’s performance was a magical act to finish off the show with, and that involved poor Tim who was sitting next to me.

Tim had to choose a card and then failed to write his name on the face – instead, he wrote on the back, and then got it in the neck (not literally) as Dan made an example of him and demanded he did it right this time. I laughed, but could tell Tim wanted the ground to swallow him.

Apparently no-one had made that f*** up before. I won’t spoil the showstopper moment for you, but hopefully it was worth Tim’s trauma (I think it was).

Overall

Dan Tiernan gives it his all on stage, and his unique brand of self-deprecating comedy and chaotic energy has the whole audience on board, and I’d definitely see him again. I don’t think his act is the most polished or as funny as it could be yet, but give it time.

NOTE: I did want to get a photo of Dan on stage, but the photo opportunity section of the show was so subtle I wasn’t sure if I was allowed yet, so no photo for you guys!