David O'Doherty is Looking Up

Writing a comedy show about a break-up must seem incredibly cathartic at the time – less so when you’ve written it for Edinburgh and 12 months later you’re revisiting the agony onstage every night in Sydney. But if anyone can take personal pain and failure and turn it into pleasant whimsy and piquant observation then it has to be Casiotone Maestro David O’Doherty, the cuddliest man in the world.

O’Doherty’s charm lies in his combining of well-timed comedic misdirection with universal insights that, like Dylan Moran, appeal to the bewildered and feckless in each of us. Looking Up starts strongly with his trademark self-introduction from behind the curtain offering salient life advice, and then lopes along with endearing stories and a few songs for the lovelorn and generally hopeless about avoiding both Domino’s Pizza (misery and despair personified in a rectangular box) and playing Wii in your underpants. The highlight, though, is the finale – a local premiering of O’Doherty’s Beefs 2012. And if you want to know what modern irritations he’s lampooning this year, you’ll have to go to his show (…or YouTube) to find out.