Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Wonderfully outspoken and a glorious acid wit, bundled together to make a woman of keen verbal desire; it’s possible that you might find many such outrageously verbose and sincerely talkative people on the comedy circuit but there are few like Katherine Ryan, there are even less that truly grab you by the short and undeniably curly in such a way as the comedienne from Sarnia in Canada.
Not heard of the city with such an illustrious pedigree of teen angst and Government approved and so they say safe chemical plants that don’t spew poison in to the system, then it doesn’t matter really but it’s no wonder that Katherine Ryan escaped the seemingly inevitable and the so called normal to become one of the biggest and brightest of the new stars gracing the stages and clubs of the U.K.
What is important in any comedy arena is how you are perceived, like Tiffany Stevenson and Patrick Monahan, it does you no harm to be seen as different, to be loved for being unique and having the nerve, the credibility to stand infront of an audience and some point drop the c word bomb into conversation, dismiss your sister’s choice of homemade wedding knitted dress or insult an entire nation, (in their eyes and not actually intended); in Katherine Ryan’s experience such things are there to be said and it was on such a night at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall that the Canadian superstar really came of age and tore apart certain conventions with ease, guile and the odd lapse into the Geordie accent to mock a self styled nation’s sweetheart.
From the jolt worthy beginning in which as an introduction Ms. Ryan suggested all the back rows should perhaps applaud in an unconventional manner, even giving a blow by blow account of how to attain it, to the death of Joan Rivers, a joke on Mock The Week which had the Philippines in uproar and a superb finale in which she rehearsed her Maid of Honour speech for her sister’s wedding; this was a night when shocking was just perfect and the reception intense.
A sublime evening of comedy from Katherine Ryan, one that hit the spot over and over again like a baseball bat to the funny bone; so funny it hurt.
Ian D. Hall