Dylan Moran, What It Is, The Journal Tyne Theatre

Following around 85 minutes (including interval) in his presence last night, I was able to update the aforelisted list a la:

• He is, indeed Irish
• He remains the writer behind the VERY funny TV series, Black Books and a prominent cast member of Shaun of the Dead and Run Fat Boy Run
• He has bed hair at all times (although it is currently shorter than I would have predicted)
• He does stand up comedy with dishevelled precision, using masterful phrasing and head-scratching delivery to make the perhaps stalwart subjects of stand-up (differences between the sexes, getting older, Zulus on spacehoppers(?) sound revolutionary.
• I REALLY fancy him

A pretty much packed out theatre had turned out to see the second North East coming of his show, What It Is (the first visit came via the City Hall last October).

Adopting the characteristics of a slightly tipsy, rambling, sometimes bewildered and often exasperated fella of more than the 37 years he has clocked up, Moran simply arrives on the stage, talks for a bit... and just happens to make a lot of beautifully-phrased sense.

It's a mark of his philosophical pulling power that I didn't manage to make too many decipherable notes during proceedings... it's also to his credit that I'm struggling to recall specific funnies... it was just all incredibly good.

I do remember him comparing the human race's environmental plight to trees shaking themselves to chuck out the squirrels... I recall his definition of a couple, which (paraphrased) is that it is an entity which only manages to be half as intelligent as its most intelligent member... and there was also an assertion that children are much better at giving the silent treatment, because they talk you through it.

Consumerism; youth being thoroughly wasted on the "strawberry-jam-brained" young; an introduction to yoga; and morning wheezes which sound like an ice-cream vans were also on the perhaps slightly clipped menu.

With no support act, and an interval, there was a vague feeling that the evening was over all too soon... but I'd take that over a clock-watching/yawn combo any day of the week.