It takes a certain bravery, or innocence, to name your debut full-hour show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Don’t Bother. Potentially, it's opening up a collective noun of own goals: "Don't Bother Seeing This Show," being just the most easy critical cheap-shot. Except, when it comes to Bróccán Tyzack-Carlin's poetry, spoken word and audience rapport, the obvious take-away is quite the opposite: "DO Bother To See This Show. Bother lots."
His voice helps. It's deep, characterful, full of colour and subtlety.
Though some might suggest Bróccán’s a star in the making, I'd suggest he's pretty fully formed already, just waiting to be discovered by comedy's top astronomers. His voice helps. It's deep, characterful, full of colour and subtlety; the sort of voice you expect to soothe you on Radio 4, though perhaps not then panicking about the logical inconsistency of saying someone "looks like a million bucks". Or even "a million books". Talking of which, Bróccán shows he'd be a natural for the talking book of Enid Blyton's The Adventures of Peter Rabbit, although he might question some of the details!
His own attempt at a children's book, called Happy as Larry, is delightfully sick, though arguably his best riff is about the many years of mental distress triggered by the T-shirt phrase: "Dip me in Chocolate and Throw me to the Lesbians." Bróccán successfully manages to wring much more material out of this than you'd think possible. Less showy, but equally good, are a series of poems about Apollo astronaut Neil Armstrong, spread throughout the show, that are essentially about ignoring both the external and internal voices trying to tell each of us: "Don’t bother" trying to achieve anything.
Early on, Bróccán suggests he chose his show’s title as advice for us: "Don't Bother" looking for some unifying theme, or even connections between disparate examples of his writing, produced over several years. Except, properly modest writer that he is, he has found those connections, and played them expertly. And as a performer, he has just the right level of tact not to draw too much attention to the fact. Catch him if you can.
