Pleasance Courtyard

Aug 11-14, 16-29 (16.45)

Laughs:    Material:    Delivery:

25 year-old Rory O’Keeffe is a refreshing wee marvel in the panoply of stars that shine into Edinburgh each August. A soft-spoken, quick-witted geezer, he builds an immediate rapport with his audience that never falters, taking us on a merry ride through his theme – the comedy latent in language, something we can all relate to. Indeed, some of his own contributions to the English language are simply brilliant & should definitely become a part of all our perfunctory patois. A central motif is of this show is his adventures in learning Italian, & when one is shown the Italian hand-signal for the Risorgimento, one knows one is being entertained by a clever fellow. O’Keeffe was trained as an actor, & where many before him have attempted the cross-generic saunter into comedy & failed, he has actually gained something in the transition – a platform for his absolute mastery of the spoken word. He’s funny too – you know as soon as he begins to say summat about summat, then when he says summat else about that particular summat, you’ll be laughing – every time!

Rory explores his theme with an adept credibility & a knack of connecting with our personal, subconscious comedy observations. Working his room without getting too involved with the audience, he is assisted by a supreme confidence in his material which cements all essences together. He also uses a power-point with precision, & just as Sean Dyche got the Burnley FC managerial job with a brilliant power-point presentation to the board, then led them to the riches of the Premier League, so too is O’Keefe’s canny use of said equipment propelling him into the higher reaches of the comedy universe that is twinkling over Caledonia’s capital right now. This guy is definitely mid-blossom, on his way to being one of the better comedians around, & when you hear the sound-engineer still chuckling nine shows in, you just can tell that he’s gonna go far.

Reviewer : Damian Beeson Bullen