It takes a while to adjust to Karl MacDermott's leisurely pace, but this gentleness disguises his careering comic visions. MacDermott sets himself in jail after a failed bank robbery with a gang of Christian Brothers; while he languishes, he imagines his family agitating for his release, fundraising by means of his mother's Robert De Niro impressions. He's the eternal victim, persecuted for having the wrong face and fantasising wildly about revenge and success; his onstage amiability may hinder him from really trail-blazing comedy, but the laughs are still there in abundance. His brief history of Anglo-Irish politics is so fiercely ludicrous it could set diplomatic relations back by, ooh, several minutes.
Written for The Independent.
Copyright © Ian Shuttleworth; all rights reserved.
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