Who is Loren O’Brien? Is she famous? Should we just pretend to know her while we clap excitedly, waiting for her entrance? These questions are asked and answered by Loren O’Brien herself. In this hour long piece, which is performed in the Pit as part of Vault Festival, the charismatic comedian certainly addresses the antics of stardom and fame, but also has time to attend to racism, sexism and plenty of jokes concerned with male genitalia. In short, she gives us a real good time.

O’Brien is a force to be reckoned with: her energy hits you from the first minute and she shows no signs of slowing down. Not only is she quick on her feet and wickedly hilarious, but she also has a certain charm about her as she is always ready to make fun of herself. Her down-to-earth tone makes her occasionally risky comedy accessible and digestible. Most of her content comes from personal anecdotes often ending with an unexpected twist, linked together nicely with smooth transitions. Each story relates but also folds into the previous one, as she uses repetition to engage with us and create familiarity. Characters such as her stepdad, her sister and even Judas return over and over again, although the Judas sketch might be a bit too long and gets dangerously close to being redundant.

Her use of a single projector shows how well she uses images and video to add an extra punch to her humorous performance rather than letting the use of technology upstage her. Although this is a brand new show, her timing is excellent and the jokes land very well – a couple of minutes in and her audience loves her already.

The Vault Festival’s underground vibe really works for this stand-up show; the audience, drink in hand, is quite relaxed. O’Brien uses this atmosphere to interact with her audience and maintain the conversational style of her act. The show does deflate a little towards the end as her videos become slightly repetitive, but she quickly acknowledges it too, by reminding us that she was going for ‘quantity, not quality’. It’s this kind of self-awareness that makes her performance not only honest, but truly loveable.

Overall the show definitely offers some big laughs and a whole lot of controversial jokes: after all O’Brien isn’t exactly a tame performer. If you are into the kind of comedy that is not afraid to ‘go there’, O’Brien’s unapologetic show at the Vault is a great choice.

 

Loren O’Brien: Who? is playing at the Vault Festival until February 21. For more information and tickets, see www.vaultfestival.com/loren-obrien-who