Every year at MICF there’s that show that most punters will have no clue is even happening, but needs to be seen as much as the bigger names of the festival. For every Hannah Gadsby or Wil Anderson, there’s a Natalie Palamides or Neal Portenza. It’s the inevitable nature of the festival that within the mountain of comedic excellence, there’s a gem that secretly shines brightest amongst the gold.
As audience members file in for Hot Donkey, Belfast native Paul Currie is already chiselling away at the fourth wall, giving punters a sneaky glimpse into what’s about to come. From there, the show is almost as much a direct challenge to his crowd as to the nature of comedy itself, making punters re-evaluate what they find funny from the outset. It’s not controversial material or even anything close to offensive, it’s the stuff on the outskirts of normality that make audiences ask things like, “Is he really wearing pandas on his hands?”
While Hot Donkey is an expert presentation in absurdist humour, the show is peppered with a beautiful and incredibly personal tale of Currie’s journey to comedy. From his childhood obsession with Sesame Street to actually working for the Jim Henson Company, the Irish comic details this dream actualisation and the aftermath of meeting your heroes. What’s most incredible, however, is just how phenomenally well Currie dances on the razor-thin line that separates these performance styles. As he jumps from anarchic prop work to delving into his own life stories, Currie maintains a faultless and unparalleled energy that never wanes, even when his crowd aren’t 100% on board. It shouldn’t work, but by God does it work well.
Truly, there is nothing that can be written down to adequately summarise the intense and chaotic beauty of Hot Donkey. It’s a performance that leaves punters teary with laughter, heartbreak and pure optimism, exiting the venue completely changed and ready to see the world in a new light. It is simply and without question an unmissable piece of theatre.
