Canadian-born comedian, Tony Law, performed in the very luxurious Boole lecture hall (a big step up from the Apollo, it must be said) to an impressive crowd that filled most of the hall, he performed for forty minutes – but he had the easy job.Performing before Law were three younger acts, all of whom are/were UCC students. MC Alan Hurley, a former UCC Engineering student got the ball rolling with a series of gags at his own expense, mostly in relation to his experiences with the opposite sex and his dire inability to dance. In between acts he graced the stage with his presence and what a grace it was. Of all the acts, his wit, timing and interaction with the audience worked best and it wasn’t long before the audience started to relax and enjoy the gig.Michael Stack and Johnny Goodwin were the lucky support acts on the night. BioChem student Michael Stack performed well during his time on the stage. Although he initially seemed a little awkward on stage, it fed the success of his performance and armed with his boyish, cheeky charm he proved to be very entertaining. Making slightly risqué comments every now and then he kept the audience’s attentions firmly in his grasp. Again, drawing on his relations with the opposite sex, he was able to relate to both sexes in the audience and, needless to say, made us laugh throughout.Johnny Goodwin, former Nursing student, gave a more mature performance than the others – at the beginning at least. Out of all the acts, I feel this is the one that got off to the slowest start. Not to take away from the rest of his performance though, as it was excellent. Drawing on raw materials such as his relationship with his girlfriend (have you noticed a trend forming yet?!), but thankfully there wasn’t much repetition of the other guys’ performances and, particularly from mid to the end of his performance, I laughed manically at most of his gags.The main attraction, Tony Law. I was unfamiliar with him before that night, having never seen him perform before. In other words, I had no idea who the hell he was and had no expectations of him besides assuming that he was going to be funny. So now I tell you – never assume anything. I did laugh and some of his material was clever but I did feel like the forty minutes dragged a little. It was clear that he didn’t put much preparation into his performance; it wasn’t very fluid, he repeated things quite often giving us the impression that he was desperately wasting time in an attempt to think of something new to say. He began his performance with minutes upon minutes (all exaggerations aside) of saying ‘BANTAAA’ (that’s Law saying ‘banter’ with his unusual Canadian/English accent). It was funny to begin with but it soon became a little tedious and I found myself laughing half-heartedly because I felt like I should, or to mask the awkwardness around me. The rest of his performance was quite good; I enjoyed the reference to his family (who happen to be pirates on one side and Vikings on the other, naturally). This, for me, was the highlight of his time on stage but again, there was quite a bit of repetition (don’t worry, the irony of that sentence is not lost on me).I’ll remember Tony Law (until I come across him again) as being every batch of crazy. From his hair to his material to his physical performance on stage, it’s obvious that this man is insane and has a hell of a lot of energy but it’s not so much Tony Law’s performance that I was impressed by and will remember – it’s the three guys’ performances that (thankfully) made up most of the gig anyway.Comedy Society has weekly events and will be hauling in some more big names in future so keep an eye out for updates on their Facebook page: www.facebook.com/ucccomedy.
