Carl Donnelly’s show doesn’t really have anything to do with its title but hey, you’ve got to call your show something, right? Rather than anything you might imagine this show to be about, it’s actually a gently-paced meditation on anxiety, depression, divorce, family dynamics and body image. These sound like pretty heavy topics – and they are – but Donnelly seems so damn likeable and sympathetic that you feel compelled not just to hear him out but to cheer him on as he navigates the shit-maze life seems to have placed him in over the last few years.
Key topics include his divorce and his emotion-phobic father’s touchingly indirect reaction to his son pouring his broken heart out; his lifelong journey coming to terms with gynaecomastia (enlargement of a man’s breasts), which involved an utterly devastating sunburn-and-sunstroke incident and one real dick of a doctor; the dilemma of being vegan or working class (it’s one or the other); his discomfort with returning to the dating game in a world where it’s hard enough to meet new people without coming off like a creep, even when you’re not accidentally chuckin’ blueberries at them or squirting venom all over their copy of 50 Shades Of Grey like the frill-necked Dilophosaurus in Jurassic Park. It’s all capped off with a reflection on the reluctance of males to discuss their sexual experiences and then finally a big personal revelation that ends the show with you totally, utterly on Donnelly’s side as he pulls himself out of the funk of the last few years.
In a lot of ways this show feels like a meditation on masculinity, particularly how men are raised to bury their feelings deep down rather than deal with them, even when they’re caused by life-changing events such as divorce. The greatest thing about this show though is that you don’t quite realise how much you’re enjoying it until after it’s over, and you find yourself pondering its themes as they apply to you, reflecting on Donnelly’s most personal revelations, and genuinely hoping that the dude’s going to be alright.
BY PETER HODGSON
