Comedy review: Jarlath Regan

With the slightly bizarre feel of a historical document, this show – which Jarlath Regan would have been performing at this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe in normal circumstances – was the last to be filmed in Dublin’s prestigious Vicar Street Theatre before lockdown.

It opens with the stand-up thanking his audience for taking a risk to see him, as he hopes for those watching at home that coronavirus is a memory.

Bundled with the donations package for his popular Irishman Abroad podcast, Notions Eleven eschews the dominant narrative strand of Regan’s recent shows for a more discursive ramble of observations, rooted in reporting back from his life in the UK, and London specifically, to his compatriots.

Though Regan is as warm and engaging as ever, making instant connections with the crowd over his foibles and his relatives’ quirky behaviour, there’s a welcome, understated edge when Regan alights on Brexit, the Royal Family and the British mentality, as he capably shifts between the personal and the political.

His charm and conviviality allows him to oversell a solid but lightweight routine about his frustrating home printer. And he closes by pulling his punches somewhat on the skirmishes of the sexes, his direct, pragmatic approach to parenting having yielded deeper laughs.

THREE STARS