Other stand-ups stand up. David O'Doherty sits, plays, struts, strides, kicks at his mic-stand and, occasionally, lies on the floor. His habit of writing a song about his 'beefs' for the year has, for this Fringe, given birth to David O'Doherty Will Try To Fix Everything: an hour-long list of things which annoy him in this world and which, somehow, he will endeavor to fight against with his tiny casio keyboard.
O'Doherty's half-singing and jilted keyboard playing is, for some, his main attraction, but in his full-length shows he proves that this is far from his only trick. This is a comedian entirely comfortable onstage, so when he contents himself with simply standing up, he is willing and able to joke with everything and anything thrown his way. Every sip of water is rendered hilarious, his impression of a stick-insect second to none and a cluster of breathtaking one-liners nearly created a vacuum in the sold out venue.
He also does a lot of cycling. His love of the professional sport leads us to one of those wonderful, barely-rhyming songs about blaming the fallen angel Armstrong for everything wrong in the world. Here he flirts momentarily with controversy - a style so far from his norm that we have a brief feeling of vertigo - before dashing off in the other direction entirely and bringing us back down to earth with comforting charisma.
Though almost painfully fantastic and charmingly inoffensive, I doubt David O'Doherty has actually fixed everything by the end of the show. For a moment, though, he had us all fooled.
