Tommy Tiernan: Out of the Whirlwind

Midway through his set Tommy Tiernan reveals that he's recently realised that a routine he performed some years ago on a TV chat show was probably a little bit racist. While contrite, the content of this hour shows he remains keen to engage with ideas that flirt with the same possibility. He defends his material by stating that he's only joking – but this stance is always problematic and suggests comedians needn't take responsibiity for what they say as long as it's funny enough.

After all, a key sequence in this show concerns a skit imagining Tiernan encountering a succession of minority groups and embarrassing himself as he attempts to say the right thing. While the joke is clearly intended to be about his own failure to do so, the whole is performed in a succession of stereotypical comedy accents. Are we laughing at those accents, or the ridiculousness of them? The end result is the same – a comedian getting laughs from the funny voices of marginalised groups. That it's funny doesn't really work as an excuse.

Because there's no doubting it's a really funny show. Tiernan's economy of language and poetic vocabulary reveals his mastery in conjuring imagery in an impressively efficient fashion. He's a likable everyman whose anger and confusion at the world is expressed via rants about Donald Trump, Brexit and Isis. But there are also lengthy sequences exploring the differences between men and women that recall standups from decades ago. As such, this is a sometimes oddly anachronistic hour.