David Quirk: Career Suicide

No one likes Morrissey but Quirk somehow can’t help agreeing with aspects of an argument in which the ex-Smiths’ singer compares meat eaters to paedophiles; and he frames it in a way where you can’t disagree either. Clever, and with outstanding posture, Quirk takes us through an hour of stories bookended by that time he went to Edinburgh and came up against an angry German Chippendale merch-pusher and a missing towel.

Quirk enters the stage wrapped in said towel, wet, as though he’s just come out of the shower. The outfit sets the stage for a story he uses to hold together the middle of the show; where he delves into homelessness, being a vegan; having the same argument as people you hate and being abused by 8-year-old girls.

One for an amusing anecdote, Quirk’s stories are immensely entertaining and one feels like one is being wooed by an overly charismatic friend at the dinner table rather than performed to, such is the personal nature of his comedy. You don’t feel like you’re being presented with a caricature of a person here. Quirk’s material feels honest, whether it is or not. 

He’s what they call a ‘comic’s comic’ and won the Piece of Wood Award, voted by other festival comedians, at last year’s MICF. While this show may be less subversive than some of his previous offerings – there’s not much about suicide in here at all – it’s a solid hour of self-assured comedy that doesn’t fail to deliver.