Ardal O’Hanlon

Ardal O’Hanlon is a lovely chap. So lovely that even saying f*** can’t make him any less loveable.

 Melbourne International Comedy Festival 2011
Adrian Bohn presentsCapital Theatre Thursday, 21 April, 2011 Ardal O’Hanlon is a lovely chap. So lovely that even saying fuck can’t make him any less loveable.
Best known as a cat in an episode of Dr Who and as Father Dougal in the bloody wonderful Father Ted (let’s forget My Hero), Ardal is so damn nice that it’s impossible not to love him. I hope he wasn’t trying to be hard and edgy…
Years on the standup circuit have let Ardal shape his opening like it was written for Melbourne and Australia: the place with stuff no one else has, like the platypus and jobs. He weaves in stories about how grim it is in the northern hemisphere with the economic crisis, throws in the compulsory Irish-Catholic Pope jokes and plays with heard-it-before material, like tight sheets on hotel beds, his wife looking less than sexy in a floral maternity dress and the horror of charity Christmas gift.
Sure it’s safe and standard stand up stuff, but he tells it with such freshness and charm that even the baby poo story is laugh-out-loud delightful.
I love Ardal on the telly and love him a little bit more in the flesh. He’s not breaking any new ground, but shows less-experienced comedians how to charm a huge room by telling some damn fine jokes. And he confirms my theory that willy is the funniest word in the English language.