The comedy is as broad as the performers’ accents,
and cozily familiar.

A growing affection for all things Irish is clearly abroad in the land. "Waking Ned Divine" is charming the indie film crowds. "The Beauty Queen of Leenane" will soon give way to "The Weir" at Broadway’s Walter Kerr Theater and brothers Frank and Malachy McCourt are kings of the bestseller lists, even as Frank’s "Angela’s Ashes" heads toward the bigscreen. Can a animated Fox series - say, Mike Judge’s "Dubliners" - be far behind? For now, audiences who can’t get enough of lovable rogues with lovable brogues will have to settle for "A Couple of Blaguards," a pair of charismatic performers with Irish pedigrees in order. They treat the audience to a standup-comedy version of the occasional joys and many miseries of a destitute upbringing in Ireland, as well as some American adventures. The subject matter is culled from their books "Angela’s Ashes" and "A Monk Swimming".
The weird excesses of Catholicism are vividly sent up, with Duffin ripely playing a priest who dwells on the gorier forms of torture he imagines in hell, and later a schoolmaster who trots out the old theory that pimples are caused by boys "interfering" with themselves.
The comedy is as broad as the performers’ accents, and cozily familiar.

by Charles Isherwood

Back