Carl Donnelly: Different Gravy

Carl Donnelly may amuse some, but he will surprise no-one. While his self-awareness keeps Different Gravy from entirely becoming Fringe standup-by-numbers, the show offers little originality except in its unconventional structure.

Donnelly builds his routine around spoken excerpts from his eponymous unpublished, highly embellished autobiography, which not only describes Donnelly's life so far, but predicts what will happen in the years to come. The fictional memoir has a rich comic history, from Spike Milligan to Al Franken, but Donnelly never takes full advantage of its imaginative possibilities. Having given himself full license to make things up, Donnelly still cannot make his autobiography interesting, and jokes which would be mildly amusing on the page are not improved by the giggling, self-satisfied delivery. Donnelly always maintains a cheerful, motor-mouthed demeanor, but assumes too easily that the audience is having as good a time as he is, or that they agree with some of his more unforgiving opinions.

The material covers some wearily familiar moans about celebrity culture, digressions on Donnelly's troubled adolescence which don't probe deep enough to be gripping or insightful, and worst of all, an excess of jokes about the standup business itself. While this is not exactly forbidden subject matter, it can quickly become alienating for the casual audience, and in Donnelly's case, it seems more than a little self-indulgent.

Donnelly has gone for the easy jokes, and in many ways he is an easy comedian, unchallenging and unremarkable. But, if you want more than that, look elsewhere.