~~~ Dylan Moran ~~~ I first came across Dylan Moran in his role of Bernard Black in the TV series ‘Black Books’. Whilst I enjoyed his ‘performance’ as a grumpy, drunken bookstore owner, I mainly watched the show because of Bill Bailey and so never really thought much about following up his career. It wasn’t until I stayed over a friend’s of mine who showed me his first stand-up DVD, ‘Monster’ that I really began thinking about him as a comedian.
Having watched ‘Monster’ at a friend’s house, (a promptly buying it myself at the first opportunity) I kept an eye out for anything else Dylan might release. It was with some interest then that when ‘Dylan Moran – Like, Totally…Live’ appeared in my Amazon suggestions that I thought it might be well worth checking out.
I suspect that Dylan is one of those comedians relatively few actually know much about. For those of you who have never encountered him before, Dylan is an Irish comedian/actor and writer. He was co-writer on ‘Black Books’ and has made appearances in movies such as ‘Shaun Of The Dead’ and ‘Notting Hill’.
~~~ Like, Totally…The Show ~~~ Taken from his 2006 tour, ‘Like, Totally’ finds Dylan onstage in London, (or ‘Cosmopolise’ as he describes it) talking about a range of subjects, from the country-side, Americans, being Irish in the UK, love and various other topics.
Dylan’s style of comedy can be quite surreal in places, but it’s quite a different kind of surreal to “similar” comics. Rather than being eccentric, Dylan’s style, to me at least, is far more reminiscent of a drunkard’s ramblings, (although far more coherent than some random drunk in your local, I must say). Admittedly, Dylan can often be seen on stage with a cigarette in hand and a glass of wine nearby, so there is a possibility that he is actually drunk, although I suspect if he were really drunk he’d make a lot less sense than he actually does, (although I suppose you could argue he might be so used to being drunk he’s learnt to function coherently, one of the two).
I think to compare Dylan with other comedians is a little unfair, since he’s quite unlike most stand-up’s I’ve encountered. Even so, to give you an idea of whether you might like him or not, I think fans of Bill Bailey, Dara O’Briain, Jack Dee, Eddie Izzard and to some extent Billy Connolly would probably enjoy his comedy most. In the case of ‘Like, Totally’, Dylan reminds me of Eddie Izzard, partially because of the content of his observations, as well as their whimsical nature, but mostly in his style of delivery. Unlike Izzard, Dylan tends to be a little more structured in his routine and whilst he does go off on the occasional tangents, on the whole he knows where he’s going with what he’s saying.
Dylan launches into his routine from the very moment he comes on stage and throughout the show Dylan manages to move from one topic to another with relatively little difficulty and the show flows quite naturally with nothing feeling as if it’s been shoe-horned in because he’s gone off on a major tangent.
One of my personal favourite sections is where he discusses being a parent and how he looked forward to teaching his children about the world, only to discover that children have their own questions, (“what are the gaps in-between the pointy bits on a comb called?”). I also liked the fact that, like ‘Monster’, in the background some of his own drawings are projected on the stage behind him. Occasionally these tie in to some degree with what his talking about at that moment, but on the whole they’re quite random, even bizarre.
Like many stand-up’s these days, Dylan is quite liberal with his swearwords, although I never felt as if he was over using them. If you’re easily offended by certain words, (mostly the “f-word”) then this is perhaps one to avoid. I think for this reason the rating of 15 is valid, but even so I don’t think there’s anything necessarily offensive or inappropriate about his language, or the subject matter of his routine for that matter.
With a runtime of just over an hour I thought the show was a little short-lived. Personally, I would have liked a little more, maybe even just another fifteen minutes or so, since I thought he was getting funnier towards the end of the show and
On the whole, Dylan’s stand-up routine is quite amusing and there’s plenty to make you chuckle throughout. What I would say is that I personally didn’t find ‘Like, Totally’ a side splitting watch and, compared with his ‘Monster’ DVD I didn’t think it was quite as funny. Even so, the comedy in this show is still entertaining and is still well worth watching. If you’ve never encountered Dylan’s stand-up before, this is an excellent introduction and I don’t newcomers, or those who are already fans for that matter, would feel excessively disappointed since there is enough humour throughout to keep you amused.
~~~ The DVD ~~~ The DVD itself is well designed and on the whole easy to navigate, although there is one exception I’ll mention in a moment.
The menu is clearly laid out and finding your way around is quite intuitive, I doubt anyone would find themselves lost.
There are a couple of ‘extra features’. The first is ‘Dylan Moran’s Guide To Superfast Fitness’. This shows Dylan in his dressing room backstage performing a series of peculiar “exercises”. For me, whilst it held some interest to watch once, I felt it didn’t really add much to the disc as a whole.
‘Image Gallery’ offer the chance to see Dylan’s drawings (the ones that appear throughout the show behind him). These are quite interesting to look at, although I have to say some of them are more than a little bizarre. I doubt this will appeal to everyone, but there is some value in having them as a feature on the DVD. One major criticism I have here is that everytime you move to the next image, the navigation menu resets the option to ‘Back’, meaning you have to move to ‘Next’ each time. Whilst on the face of it this is a mild nuisance, given that there are quite a lot of images to go through it does get rather annoying and is a bit of a let down on what it otherwise a well design and easy to follow menu system.
At the time of writing it’s possible to buy this DVD for about £9 from Amazon, (though, as ever, I’m sure if you searched around you could get it cheaper). I think this might be a little too expensive, mostly because of the lack of decent bonus material, but also because in my opinion his ‘Monster’ DVD is a more entertaining show, (and is cheaper to purchase). I think anywhere closer to £7 or less is a reasonable price to pay.
~~~ Conclusion ~~~ I don’t think ‘Like, Totally’ is by any means a terrible DVD and there is plenty of humour throughout to keep most people entertained on various levels, although I doubt most people would find themselves aching with laughing. That said, there are plenty of moments that made me chuckle and all things told I quite enjoyed the show.
I think if you’re a fan of any of the comedians I’ve mentioned earlier, than ‘Dylan Moran – Like Totally, Live!’ is well worth checking out and, for the right price, is a pleasant enough DVD to have in your connection. If you can’t stand the comedians mentioned, then there’s nothing on this disc that I think would be able to persuade you otherwise and it’s probably best avoided.
I for one mostly enjoyed this DVD and it’s something that I have watched several times, although perhaps not as much as some other stand-up DVDs I own. One I would recommend to those who are interested, but not necessarily one I would insist you have to see.
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Average
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Satisfactory
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Satisfactory
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