"The way you can tell that somebody didn’t like your set," opines O’Doherty towards the finale of his opening night performance, "is if they tell you afterwards ‘there was a guy next to me who absolutely loved it.’"  He was a feeling a bit upset, because he genuinely couldn’t tell if the audience had enjoyed the show.  True, the punters were displaying that awful Wellington trait of quietly appreciating everything until the final ‘curtain’ when they erupt into rapturous applause.  But David, take it from me, we loved it.  It was awesome.

I was already sold on this show by the publicity material (Tick Tock, Tick Tock, it’s O’Doherty O’Clock!), which O’Doherty assures us he really takes his time over, agonizing about how to transcend the tidal wave of hype that is associated with stand-up comedy.  In fact, a lot of O’Doherty’s material concerns the modern person’s quest for integrity in a world gone a bit crap.

O’Doherty Time is a phenomenon not unlike, say, Māori Time or Island Time.  We are on OT from the outset, when O’Doherty self-introduces his act from offstage.  This turns out to be a miniature routine all of its own, complete with digressions and meanderings.  O’Doherty happily follows his nose with his material, obliquely referring to the ‘crudest’ gag in the set early on, then deciding just to deliver it straight away.  His songs often drop away suddenly so that he can deliver a subclause, footnote or afterthought to the main throughline.

The songs are a signature of O’Doherty’s work, delivered with a Yamaha keyboard accompaniment, more or less just an extension of his stand-up flow with a (slightly) funky beat or a simple electro motif repeated alongside.  In a way they serve to actually distil or condense his humour to its most precise expression.  The lyrics are, like any great song, so obvious and simple and yet somehow mellifluously expressive – they are superbly crafted, even if they sound dorky.  Fans of Daniel Johnson will know what I mean, although I’m in no way insinuating a similarity between the two.

The key to O’Doherty’s wonderful comedy is surely his observational prowess.  His commentary on New Zealand is quite astute, and the details that he pinpoints throughout his densely packed set accrue to reveal an acute worldview of much more pertinence and wisdom than that of many shows purporting to have topical or philosophical content. 

This is comedy at the level of artistic expression.  He engages his audience because his thoughts and ideas are not glib, but genuine.  He doesn’t pick easy targets, yet his maxims are simple: Don’t cook fruit;  Just grow up and stop being a dork and the world will be a better place.  Those statements are a lot smarter than they at first sound.

Perhaps the only problem with performers with this level of artistic integrity is that if they’re not feeling it, they can’t just put on a fake smile and get it over with.  Which is why on opening night, O’Doherty lay down on the stage and had a moan about how badly we the audience were treating him.  He did it again at curtain call, and throughout the show he appeared quite put out that we weren’t applauding every gag. 

Of all the performing arts, only stand-ups can indulge the desire to criticise their audience, and to me it’s a hollow privilege.  The best performers always give their audience the benefit of the doubt.  But in any case, I don’t think O’Doherty has anything to worry about.  The crowd might not have been as ‘riotous’ as in Auckland, but it was far from a lukewarm reaction. 

Next time, David, just take a bow!
  

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