[Hire, don’t buy]
The comedians of the title are up-and-comers Brendan Kelly and Tony Lyall. They are a little shaggy around the edges, but there is some truly great material here.
Tony Lyall’s is at his strongest when he links pop culture to the mundanities of life. He manages to find a way to link Weet-Bix to every part of his set. It goes on way too long but it’s worth some laughs. There is an even better bit involving an inconvenient power outage in a public bathroom — I won’t ruin the punchline, but it was probably the hardest belly laugh of the night.
Lyall is also good when talking about the big issues — because he inevitably finds some way to relate it back to whatever subject he is more interested in. In this way, a brief discussion of climate change can turn into a rant about the impracticality of everyone wearing leather vests in Waterworld (1995).
By contrast, Brendan Kelly goes for pathos. He really misses his adopted penguin son and he demands that you feel every deranged, heart-aching moment of it. It’s an interesting idea, but it needs a bit more to it. It does have an unexpected pay-off, because Kelly is so enamoured with his imaginary step-progeny that he rubbishes any part of his set which does not relate to his penguin son (he even called out the audience for laughing). That was great.
If there is one flaw with the stand up, it is pacing. There are a couple of baggy patches in Kelly’s set where the pacing lags, and uncomfortable silence turns to tedium. In a weird way, it adds to the intended awkwardness of his set.
Overall, Comedians for Hire is solid stuff, with occasional moments of comic gold.
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