Sean Hughes (FringeTIX)
Sean Hughes @ Royalty Theatre
6:00pm, Sun 25 Mar 2007
Right. So it appears that there was about a thousand fans of Sean’s Show here – I’m not one of them. Not because I hate it or anything, but because I’ve never heard of it. Which, in retrospect, leaves me scratching my head as to why this show made my shortlist; I possibly took the line that, because Sean is foreign to our shores and booked to play the Royalty, then he must be a bit of OK at the comedy thing.
And, truth be told, he can tell a joke or two. He has some good running gags – his crowd “flame” Sophie gets repeated rude propositions (despite the fact that she was sitting next to her father), and the Fire Babies gag gets recalled time and time again. And he has a decent go at Peter Goers. Which is nice. But, despite promises that he “really does have a show – I’m not just going to be reading newspapers”, the show pretty much just consisted of Hughes… reading newspapers. Whilst he does have an eye for ridicule potential, that’s not enough to carry a show; and when things start to fall a little flat, Hughes constantly falls back to shock-jokes, just on the “wrong” side of risque – though his Down’s Syndrome gag was worthy of a laugh.
In the end, this is remembered as a disconnected and rambling show – full of mirthy snippets, but with no theme or hook to differentiate Hughes from pretty much any other average Irish comic. Underwhelming, unremarkable, but still fun – while the memory lasts. Which won’t be too much longer, I imagine.