Daniel Townes’ informal manner results in his audience feeling more like they’re sitting around listening to one of their good mates reeling of his escapades, rather than attending a carefully planned out festival show. Although he does assure us he knows exactly where he’s going with it, in the same relaxed way, the jokes never seem rehearsed.
Don’t expect the show to lead up to some startling conclusion about his life, because according to Daniel, the point is there is no point – it’s comedy, and he never takes himself too seriously. What you do get is rapid-fire jokes with not much more time in between than to allow Daniel to take a sip of water while laughing along at our reactions.
The venue of the locker room at the Portland Hotel is aptly named – due to both the size of the room itself and the accumulated amount of sweat. (It’s always a good idea to layer up when attending any comedy festival show.) The intimate environment, combined with the fact that half the audience was holding a beer in one hand, further added to the laid-back vibe of the night.
While this is not your highbrow style of comedy, at 10:15 of an evening when nobody feels much like straining their brain after a hard days work, I don’t believe that was ever the intention.
My only niggle with this show was that the strongest part came right at the beginning, where Daniel tells of how he got deported from America. He explains, with supportive evidence, how he displayed his “cheeky” side to the American customs officials during more stages of the deportation process than the cavity search alone.
This show is running every day (except the 23rd April) until the 29th April. For booking details go to the MICF website