I Can See O’Leary Now The Ray Has Gone is a witty stand-up comedy show by New Zealand comic Ray O’Leary, delivered in his trademark monotone style. O’Leary revels in the slightly absurd, twisting mundane topics into incongruity such as in his joke about being “a nephew of divorce.” He frequently self-deprecates, riffing on his own appearance and awkward persona. The small piece of crowd work he dips his toes into has the same stylistic cringe factor, with the ironic self-awareness to acknowledge this. One of the stronger parts of the show similarly makes use of the meta, with O’Leary performing one half of a two man show with no counterpart, and the humour coming from what isn’t said rather than what is. However, I left with a feeling of disappointment, having not enjoyed it nearly as much as I had expected to.
The awkward style O’Leary cultivates ends up leaving the show feeling disjointed, with each section having a clear beginning and ending, rather than being one flowing piece. Occasional conspicuous segues are used, which ends up feeling half-hearted and jarring. The show also makes frequent use of dark humour, which often boils down to jokes ending with some outrageous reference rather than an actual punchline. He also delivers a section of chess-based puns, while pointing out how bad they are, in an attempt to have his cake and eat it.
I became familiar with O’Leary through clips of his appearances on panel shows on social media. In these clips, when given a punchline, he excels at quickly writing a funny joke to suit it—using the same style of deadpan, self-deprecating humour—the reason why I had such high expectations. In his stand-up, while much of it is well-written and funny, the standard of punchline seems to decline. This gives way to the aforementioned issues with puns and dark humour that leave you feeling unfulfilled. However, it is important to note that most of the audience on the night enjoyed the show—it’s possible that this style of comedy is simply not for me. O’Leary opens the show with the quip that people who don’t laugh at his jokes tend to be very ugly and that this looked like a beautiful audience. I must have stood out like a sore thumb.
I Can See O’Leary Now The Ray Has Gone is running until 30 August (excluding the 19th) at Cabaret Bar at Pleasance Courtyard.
Buy tickets here.
Image by Emma Holland, provided to The Student as press material.
