In a sold-out gig in the Sugar Club, Tony Cantwell proved that he gets Ireland more than most other comedians.
Seeing a stand-up comedian in person can often be a bit touch-and-go. The potential for things to go wrong is huge.
It’s not the same as going to see a band or an artist you like. With them you know what they’re going to sing, and you know that you’re going to sing along, and you’ll almost definitely have a great time.
With a stand-up performance, you don’t have that same security. But with Tony Cantwell, you do.
He opened up his show in the Sugar Club on Wednesday night by asking who was there last year, which got about 20 or 25 cheers from a crowd that was brilliantly warmed up by Liam Nugent.
The majority of people were seeing him perform for the first time, but let’s be honest – they weren’t.
It may have been the first time that they saw him in person, but due to his online presence, the crowd felt as though they knew the man in front of them.
Social media was at the root of the majority of the jokes in the accurately named Tony Cantwell’s Live Feed, each of which Cantwell delivered to perfection to an audience that hung on his every word.
It’s fitting that he used the topic of social media so prominently throughout the show, when it’s also the reason that 99% of people who were in attendance knew his name. Be it from the iconic “soft-drink” video, which birthed the now legendary “Ploon” jokes, his Sexy Beasts podcast, or his hilarious Instagram stories, it’s safe to assume that the entire audience had seen him in some form before the gig started.
https://www.facebook.com/tonycantwellcomedy/videos/375856763153797/
But despite it being the easy option, he didn’t rely on call-backs to the famous sketches at all (except for one moment when he made a soft-drink joke, and quickly pointed us in the direction of his merchandise stand). Instead he used completely new, fresh material.
In terms of laughs, one bit in particular stood out as the funniest of the night, which was when he discussed the recent Liam Neeson controversy. He brought up the fact that before his last gig in The Sugar Club, the beloved Irish actor described the Me Too movement as “a bit of a witch hunt”, and then not long before this gig, he had taken it a step further with a bizarre story from his past.
The segment finished with Cantwell saying that if he was Neeson’s PR man, the whole situation would have been easily rectified. He would have said that Neeson was simply promoting a new movie, entitled “Taken… the mick. He was only joking”. The delivery was perfection, and the room erupted.
Another highlight was an original song that Cantwell performed about drunken shite talk. The song got more and more ridiculous as it went on, as he described the nature of his conversations, and how weird they get the more he drank. It was genuinely genius, and it would be a shock if it’s not released online to the public at some stage.
If and when it does, it’s gonna blow up.
He also talked about embarrassing moments from his past, which was made 10 times more awkward (and thus 10 times more hilarious) by the fact that his mother was in attendance.
As a show, it was as well-rounded as any comedy show could be. It had incredible stand-up moments, hilarious songs, detailed sketches, and just the right amount of crowd interaction.
Known for his football chants on his Instagram page, he did something similar to start the show.
He put the names of the first three people who bought tickets on the screen behind him, and made the crowd join him in chanting about them. It was incredible, and set the tone for the whole experience.
In an era where social media is as prevalent as it is, Cantwell’s exploitation of our knowledge of it struck home in a way that couldn’t not be funny.
Add that to his genius storytelling, his comedic timing, and his extremely Irish way of looking at things, and you’ve got a stand-up comedian who perfectly represents modern Ireland’s sense of humour.
He gets Irish people. He knows what we find funny, where we draw the line, and exactly when to cross it. Never trying to be offensive for the sake of it, he still draws reactions of pure disgust from the crowd, but it’s the right disgust.
He just gets it. And the crowd get him.
Tony Cantwell. Bizarre and brilliant.
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