Dan Tiernan: Quartz And All comedy review – A delightful ode to crystals
The consistently brilliant comic enthuses about healing crystals with an open-hearted, vulnerable performance
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Challenging the stereotype that new age spiritual woo-woo is the sole preserve of female stand-ups, Dan Tiernan offers a hilariously spirited defence of his collection of healing crystals. Though he’s fairly well established now, his annual update on the latest tweaks to his quirky physiognomy and mental fortitude, allied to his snarlingly intense stage presence, ensures that, once again, he delivers a tour-de-force introduction to himself.
Uninitiated audiences might not know he’s gay. But his disclosure of an ADHD diagnosis to sit alongside his dyspraxia doesn’t exactly come as a bolt from the blue. Aggressively commanding the stage, his brow rarely less than furrowed, Tiernan is also disarmingly open, touching on the psychotic episode that formed the basis of his last show and outlining his sexual inexperience. Vulnerable and impulsive, you can see the attraction of magic, destiny-shaping stones for him.
Despite acknowledging the ridiculousness of his purchases, they are, he maintains, no more so than the catholicism he inherited or the countless tiny superstitions everyone is prone to. Supporting his bulldozing performance, there’s a beautifully written show about hope and yearning here. Soul-baring admissions of his struggle to shake off shame around his sexuality are presented cheek-by-jowl with amusingly gratuitous pops at his friend and fellow comic Paddy Young.
Dan Tiernan: Quartz And All, Monkey Barrel, until 30 August, 10.25pm; picture: Jack Hauxwell.